Time, and What Came of It
by N3mesis
Summary: This came about as a result of what happens in the Sith Warrior story line just before Corellia. Light side Zabrak SW/Malavai Quinn. I want to emphasize the MAJOR SPOILERS that will be prevalent throughout, rating of M just in case it becomes necessary. UPDATE: Changed title. Didn't like it. I'm still not convinced, hope that doesn't throw anybody. Read and review!
1. Chapter 1

My heart thumped as I laid in wait for her. For all of the threats Baras threw at me, all of his mockery for the feelings I had developed for her, I could not shake the weakness that had settled into my bones at the thought of knowing she was near.

It had been many nights that I had laid in waiting like this, trembling at the thought of her. And it had been many less nights – too few, in fact – that I had done so with not only nerves but also anticipation.

Now, the nerves had taken on a sort of sickening, nauseated quality. In fact, the nausea seemed to overtake me in an entirely unpleasant way. I felt physically ill.

My palms were sweaty, making my pristine military gloves uncomfortable. My knees buckled, and the black, polished regulation military boots at my feet showed the shadow of what had once been a scuff. I noted this in the back of my head, eyeing it strangely and with dry, numb eyes. She had scuffed it once, stepped on it with her shoe doing…something. I couldn't remember. That bothered me, that I couldn't remember.

Before I'd ever met her, it was the shoe-scuffing that would have annoyed me. But since I'd met her, things like this had seemed less significant. Things like this did not appear to matter as much. Not as much as the prospect of a lasting peace between the warring factions in whatever way possible, if for no other reason than to find an excuse to stop fighting and to relax. To be safe. To serve without the imminent threat of death. I wanted to see the Empire win, that much was true. I wanted the Empire to succeed. My entire life had been dedicated to it. I was nothing _but_ dedication and efficiency and supplication to those who were my betters. I was mechanically precise, a genius with mathematics and tactics. I was endlessly beneficial to her. I'd known that.

But my emotions had gotten carried away. What I had done was wrong, Baras had said. I'd gotten mixed up with someone who was over my head, in a situation that was above my pay grade. I'd allowed these emotions to cloud my judgment, to muddy the one, true path. It was a simple mistake, foolish, and I was ashamed. Ashamed of my mistakes, of my commitments.

Of my desires and my feelings.

Or...I said to myself that I was. Baras had commanded me to be ashamed, so, ever dedicated, I tried to be for his sake.

But the conviction I'd once had about so many other things was not in this. I confided this to my Lord Baras, that I was not truly ashamed, no matter how hard I tried to be. He just told me that this feeling as natural. I was "recovering" from my episode, my "mistake."

But if this was right and she was a mistake, _why_ did I feel so physically ill? Why did I want to _flee_?

I thought of her. Of the conviction of my duties. Of my resolve. I thought of what was right, not what I wanted. I served the greater good. My needs and desires were to be sacrificed.

Service was its own reward. I'd told her this so many times.

But _this _sacrifice? Where was the reward for _this_? Somehow, it didn't feel so bright now, the reward less obvious. Incomprehensible.

My resolve slipped momentarily, and I tried hard to gather it, to brace myself. I thought of the future, her future. The thought sent a chill into my gut, swirling then to my extremities, rendering them cold. My eyes, a little dizzy and wavering now, wandered back down to the faded scuff on my boot.

I'd cleaned it off only the day before. I was alone in the ship, alone in my quarters, and I'd scrubbed at it with a fury, nearly grunting with the effort of removing the mark she'd made on the otherwise perfectly in check uniform shoes. By the end, I realized I was crying. Being a man, being a military man at that, this had driven me to a fierce anger that could not be shaken.

I'd wanted to spend the last night with her. I'd wanted to covet her body with my mouth and my hands, gyrating hard and slow inside of her warm, wet center until she exploded with ecstasy. I'd wanted to indulge her every lust, every passion, every morsel of love and desire that she deserved, to drown her in pleasure until she was so exhausted she would fall asleep. I'd wanted to finally take her in my arms one last time, whispering into her ear as her dark hair billowed over her face.

But I couldn't look at her. Instead, I'd opened a bottle of ale from some backwater planet, something Vette had bought for me a while back that I'd hidden away with feigned disdain, and I'd guzzled the entire thing. Zawil had found me, of course, worried that I was alone in my room and instead not in hers. Worried for her husband, for her mate, for her confidante and friend.

I'd waved her away last night. Cruelly. With disdain. She'd looked at me with those normally very happy eyes sadly, but she left silently, nodding as she went. That was my first dose of incredible guilt.

I'd felt guilt a lot in the last two weeks. I'd learned of Baras' dark task then. My wife, ever attentive, did not fail to notice this. The stresses of the war were taking their toll, I'd told her when she'd asked. We all were tired. She needed rest, and so did I.

We'd made love once between that time and now, and it had not been pleasant. Instead, it was agony.

She saw this in my eyes, and – breathlessly – took my face, stilled my hips, and asked me if I was okay. Her eyes, half-lidded before, suddenly seemed alert, as if the thought of my pain truly bothered her.

That floored me. She worried for me. If only she knew…

Yes, I'd insisted, barely restraining tears from my eyes. Of course everything was okay. I was maybe just a little bit tired, and I meant no disrespect but just wanted to finish with her so that I could go to sleep.

This wounded her, and I had to look away. She noticed. I felt her recoil after she'd allowed me the mercy of an end, and even as chills washed over my body, I felt sick. She didn't huddle next to me on the bed we shared after the end. She dressed slowly, meticulously slowly, and I just watched her, feeling nauseous. Then, she curled her knees to her chest and hugged them there, her back to me, silent and sad.

I yearned to reach out to her then, to take her in my arms. I wanted so badly to apologize. But I couldn't.

After that, she began to eye me with confusion and pain. And I _ached_ for her when she looked at me. I dreamt about her with a longing even more intense and fervent than when I'd first realized my infatuation with her. My blood would rush down to my length and I would ache for it to be satisfied, ache for the intimacy that was so present, so there in front of me and so out of my own reach.

_No_, I thought to myself. I had to stop. I had to do this. Baras commanded it, and I owed him everything. If cruelty was what was demanded, this was what I would do.

I heard her walk in. She was alone this time, alone and, I could hear, totally bewildered. She walked slower, hesitantly.

"My lord," I began.

My voice sounded low and tired. I felt sadness, but I forced the cruelty out. I tried hard to channel the voice I'd felt the night before. It was difficult.

I felt my insides begin to melt and my heart beat quickened even further in the silence. I glanced over my shoulder only once, but my eyes only found her shoes. I could not look at her and resumed speaking to the far wall.

"I could not leave you to this fate without showing you the respect of being here to witness it."

I'd expected fury at the mere possibility of what I was saying. I wanted my implications to be impactful. I'd wanted her to interject, to say something witty. She was always so predictably cavalier. It was her way. It was what I had loved about her.

But instead she hesitated. For a long time. This wasn't expected.

When she finally spoke, I closed my eyes. Hearing her voice killed me inside, especially when I heard the knowledge in it. She knew what was happening, all at once. That was the worst. She _knew_ it.

"What fate?" she asked quietly. "What are you talking about?"

Suddenly, I wanted to validate everything that had happened. I didn't want to be ashamed of it or of myself or my career. I didn't want her to think I had used her. I didn't want her to think that I was ashamed of her, and I closed my eyes tightly. No matter what Baras commanded, I could not do this.

I would follow his will, but I could not be ashamed of the way I felt.

I didn't want her to think that she was inadequate, and I was washing my hands of her.

The truth could not have been further from this.

"I have enjoyed your company and companionship, my lord," I whispered to her.

I didn't want to see her wince, but I saw it in my mind's eye as clearly as if she were standing in front of me.

I finally whispered,

"That's why this is so hard."

She said nothing again. I couldn't take it anymore. I flipped around and I saw her. In all her beauty. In all of her intoxicating glory. I lapped her up with my eyes as she was one last time.

Her hair was a dark red color, so dark and so red that it almost looked black. She was a Zabrak, so this was normal. Zabrak hair could be like that. She had dull horns, two in the front, two on either side. They were dull and hardly noticeable. If not for the color of her skin and the tattoos on her face, they would have almost seemed insignificant.

Her hair was tucked back behind her ears as it always was, connected in the back by the pin her sister had given her. I wished for her to tug at the pin and let the hair loose, for it to fall to the tips of her collarbone. Even now, her hair was so lovely. It matched her skin perfectly, it being just a shade too red to be human. Her tattoos, a dark brown, covered her mouth, nose, and eyes, twisting intricately into the hair on her head. It almost looked like the insignia of the Empire. I'd told her that once. Her body, toned as ever but now hunched and withdrawn, already told me she'd been beaten.

_Don't look at her,_ I commanded myself. _Just get this done_.

"It pains me," I said breathlessly, "but this entire scenario is a ruse. There's no martial law and no special signal emitter."

I heard the wavering in my voice, and so did she. I finally willed myself to give her the dignity of looking into her eyes, and what I saw there took my breath away. I couldn't think. I refused to acknowledge what I saw. I had to continue, I had to.

No, I had to get a rise out of her. Part of me wanted her to be angry. Part of me had expected it, willed it. At least sadness. At least…_something_.

She was silent there, facing me.

I took a shaky breath. We both heard it. My resolve was slipping. So I turned on that cruelty again. I had to tug at my own resolve to penetrate hers.

"_Baras_ is my true master," I spat at her, scowling. "He had me lure you here to have you killed."

And there it was. I breathed but didn't retain air. She breathed and seemed to be in the same position. I stared into her eyes with that scowl, and for the first time, the edges of her eyes squinted together. Her mouth became taut. She bit her lip and recoiled just in the way she had during our last moment of intimacy.

"But I…"

She almost looked…afraid.

"I thought what we had was…"

I held my breath, and I was sure if I stopped breathing my heart would explode.

"I thought what we had was real," she finally managed, searching in my eyes for love.

I couldn't give her any, so I looked away. I looked away even as my heart exploded with professions I knew I would never get the chance to voice. I'd never felt so strongly about anybody or anything. Even the Empire seemed to pale in the face of what she meant to me. On still, quiet nights, we'd discussed running away to someplace far.

She'd even made the suggestion to run to some remote Republic world, just to live in obscurity. Our children would be pawns of the Empire, otherwise, and while this had once brought me great pride, she had suggested - truly and for the first time - what would happen if the child was Force sensitive.

It would be taken away to be tortured and hardened, just as she had been. Humiliated, and likely raped, if she was a young girl. Harassed and beaten habitually for being a "half-breed," Zawil had said.

The thought had changed my perspective, and I closed my eyes again to try to block it out.

_I love you_, my thoughts insisted on saying. _I love you. I love you. Get away from me because I love you._

But she didn't. Instead, she just pressed on.

"I thought we cared about each other," she whispered quietly. "I thought…I thought you cared about _me_."

_I do!_ my insides shrieked. Her words tore at my cruelty, and my resolve didn't win. I began to pace, shaking, sure my knees would force me to collapse, sure that if I wasn't squeezing my hands behind my back that she would see them shake and know how precarious my thinning resolve was.

"I…didn't want to choose between the two of you," I managed to admit. "But he's forced my hand, and I…" I lost myself for a moment. "…I _must_ side with him." My voice almost became pleading. "Without him, I would have no career."

And that was what really mattered, Baras had told me. She was nothing. Emotions were fleeting. The Empire, my duty - that was forever. I'd given my whole life for my career. She had to understand that. This had to be more important. It had to.

Didn't it?

But she said nothing, and I began to feel anger now, irrational and driven, but anger all the same. I wanted her to lash out. To react. Did I mean so little? Did any of this?

"Once you're gone," I proceeded, feeling weaker by the second, "your crew will either join Baras with me or be killed."

"You won't _touch_ them," she finally snapped, her first sign of anger.

And I jumped at it.

"We shall see how long they last against Baras' fury," I quipped back with a snarl.

I found her eyes. Something vaguely familiar had trickled in. Despite having wished it only moments before, I now only wished it gone. I felt so much remorse already that it hurt.

"I really thought you were smarter than _this_," she said with only a tint of rage.

It was a low blow, and she knew it. She was toying with my ego, making this hard.

The irrational anger exploded out of my mouth.

"I'll show you how _smart_ I am!" I snarled.

I had to demonstrate the depth of my betrayal, the thoroughness of my trickery. My tone took on an almost mocking quality, and I didn't know why. I didn't want to sound that way.

I wanted to rush to her, drop to my knees, and beg her forgiveness.

"After all this time observing you in battle, I have exhaustively noted your strengths and weaknesses."

I showed her my battle droids with the simple press of a button. My hands did shake, and she saw it. My knees did buckle, and she saw it. My eyes began to water, and I looked back at the metal beasts to hide it from her.

"I calculate a near zero percent chance of their failure," I said breathlessly.

She didn't hesitate now.

"Sounds grim," she said. "I know how thorough you are, Quinn. I'm sure this will be my greatest test."

I choked at this. What was I doing?

_What_ was I _doing_? _Why_ was I doing this?

But I couldn't stop it. It was done. I was committed. She'd be gone. Her body would be all that was left.

"If I'm right…" I finally managed. "It will be your last."

I heard her breathe. I heard something that caused a tear to fall out of the corner of one of my eyes. She could never see, and I had to hide it. These emotions were vile. Baras had said so. They were misleading me, making me weak.

But I couldn't help it. Regret was already part of the equation. I was beginning to see that it would always be.

"I'm sorry it's come to this, my lord," I finally whispered, breaking.

For a long time, she said nothing. My finger hovered over the activation button, and just as I tensed it to press down, I heard her whisper, tears choking her voice,

"Me too."


	2. Chapter 2

"I should have known!" he said fiercely, on all fours, bleeding.

He sounded viciously emotional. It was a side I rarely heard from him. He tended to be calculated – almost cold, I thought now.

Something numbing began to ring silently in my ears, and I barely heard him. I bled from the side, and so did he. I'd cut him.

He'd cut me.

"I thought I'd programmed the perfect killing machines for you," he explained to me with enough supplication to bring long overdue tears to my eyes.

He managed to stand, and still I barely noticed. I stood with my lightsaber lit, slack in my hand. I stared at the place between him and I.

"I was painstakingly precise," he whispered, staring into that same space that I was.

His voice didn't sound remorseful. Which hurt. He did not beg for mercy, and I could heard he expected none. He expected to die.

He wanted to die.

I could not give him what he wanted. I could not let him win. Not this time. Not with this. I could not let him die.

I didn't know what to say. I just began to speak.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Quinn," I said to him emotionlessly, automatically. "Your droids…they pushed me. It was a…valiant attempt."

He hung his head, his voice wavering even more with emotion than ever before.

"That's little consolation now!" he said through gritted teeth.

I said nothing, returning the hilt of my blade to its place on my belt. He advanced, limping, and he took my hands. Boldly, I thought. I felt the ring on his finger through his glove. The ring on mine. He still wore his.

_But_ why? I found myself asking. Why_ did he? What was the point anymore?_

Tears would choke me, I vowed. They would come to me in a torment of pain. I would give them their due diligence, I would attend to them as dutifully as I attended everything else. But later. I would leave the Empire and never do another bad thing if only I could hold the tears in right in those horrible, painful, killing moments. I could not let him win. I could not cry, could not let him see what I knew I would have to address later.

It was what he wanted, I bet. It was what he would have wanted. To break me.

I felt so humiliated. He had to know that. He had to see it.

I had to hide behind something, anything.

"I have betrayed you," he whispered to me, looking down at me from his place above my forehead.

He always had been taller than I was.

"I have…conspired with your most hated enemy."

My resolve began to dwindle as I felt my lip quaver, just a smidgeon. How I wished I'd brought Jaesa or Vette or even Pierce. Jaesa would have shoved the man away, Vette attached a blaster to his skull, and Pierce could have thrown the man to his ass where he belonged.

I couldn't look at him. I saw him crouch a little so that his face would intersect with my eyes, but I scrunched them closed, looked away. The tears that burned there spilled down from my eyelids, and I felt a lump in my throat grow so large that I could no longer breathe.

He backed away, releasing my hands.

"I know…I know it is meaningless to express my _deep_ regret," he said to me.

He tried to speak again, but I heard tears in his voice that stopped him.

But _why_? I found myself asking. _Why_ were they there?

He was a murderer and a liar. The man I'd married couldn't have just tried to kill me, could he? Was that possible for him? To choose his job over me?

I'd walked right into this. I was so busy looking at others that I had allowed him to infiltrate my defenses.

In more ways than one.

He really had been _painstakingly_ precise. And thorough. He must have thought me a complete fool. I certainly thought that I was.

My heart began to ache in earnest. I'd shared my bed with him. I'd come onto him. And he'd _let_ me! I'd kissed him. We'd spent many long nights, naked, twisted together in a mess of limbs, just talking, just laughing quietly, like children.

He'd made me feel convinced that I could finally leave the Sith, go away to hide. I wanted to be left alone. I had since I'd gotten there. I wanted to serve, but I no longer wished to be a pawn or a slave.

I'd looked into ways, techniques. I could sever myself from the Emperor. I'd need another Jedi, but I had Jaesa. It was doable. It was possible.

I'd wanted to change the Empire, but I'd begun to see that it was long since a dying animal. I could do nothing to slow its death, however long off that was, and the Sith were almost exclusively to blame.

I'd told all of this to him. He was a spy for those very people I'd sworn for all eternity to loathe. He was a _rat_!

"I don't expect your mercy," Quinn finally whispered, glancing up at me.

I couldn't look back.

He'd gotten me to love him. More than anybody or anything, he'd tricked me into loving him. How did he know how to do that? Did they teach him that at the Imperial Academy? With all his _medals_ and all of his _commendations_? Did that teach him how to _lie_?

Something deeper inside of me began to peel away. I realized that I could not kill him. I would not. I didn't want him to win. But what was more, I didn't want him to die. I loved him. Even if I was angry, I couldn't make a rash decision. Not then. Not when explosions were being kept so avidly at bay.

"I understand your confusion," I finally said. "Baras can be very…" I scrunched my eyes closed again, feeling the burn stain my face. "Very persuasive."

_I forgive you, Quinn_, I wanted to say. I opened my mouth to say them. I looked him in the eyes, and I saw him wanting me to say it. I wanted him to know that I wanted to forgive him. I saw in his eyes too the amazement, the wonder, the love that he'd hidden from me in only the moments before our battle.

Maybe it was just a ploy again to get my defenses down.

Suddenly, I was too weak to keep the raging forces at bay.

Brokenly, I whispered,

"I can't kill you, Quinn."

He winced at the renewed use of the surname address, but I also saw that he knew he had to address my generosity.

"My lord, I am…deeply grateful," he groveled.

Almost sniveling.

The anger came now, loud and fast, and I breathed heavily. He didn't really care about me. He didn't care about anything but his career. Maybe, he'd thought sleeping with me would earn him some much needed prestige to go up in rank. Maybe, he'd thought my influence would make his enemies quake in their shoes.

Maybe he'd just wanted me for my body. That was what I was. A body.

I struggled not to whimper, trying so hard to look away.

_Just breathe_, I thought to myself. _Think. Breathe. Stay awake. You can calm down. Just need to calm down. Just need to keep him away, not be alone with him_.

"Darth Baras would never afford me the same forgiveness," he said, looking up at me again.

The feeling of him through the Force was strange. He seemed to be intoxicated with love. He only felt like that when he pressed firmly on top of me, grasping my face between two surprisingly soft hands.

I looked away. The thought horrified me now.

He was bolder still.

"If…"

I did not interrupt him. I could feel through the Force how badly he wanted me to tell him how I felt, how awfully he wanted me to unleash on him. He didn't know how to proceed. He hadn't expected to get this far.

It was what he wanted. So I had to surprise him.

"If you will permit me to stay in your charge, my dedication to you will _never_ come into question again," he vowed.

He conveyed every ounce of sincerity I thought he could muster in that one word "never," and I found myself scorning at it.

_Just like last time_, I thought.

The thought finally broke me. I turned away now. The motion awoke me to the condition of my body, and I felt the blood pouring out of my side. I saw him eyeing it too, saw the furrowing of his brow and the clenching of his teeth as I winced.

"Trust is difficult to rebuild, Quinn," I said tearfully. "I don't know what is going to happen. I don't…"

I trailed off, so lost by the waves of pain that I could not continue.

He, ever the man, took no notice of this change.

"I'll understand if things are…different for a while," he replied fervently.

I said nothing again, literally biting my lip to hold the tears back. He continued, undeterred.

"But this interruption has delayed you enough," he said. "I'm eager to return to the ship and put this behind us."

He approached me, and I tensed. I tried so hard not to cry, just to hold it together.

It was the hardest thing I had ever done. Harder than the tortures the Sith had wrought. Harder than being taken away from my mother. Harder than the constant threat of betrayal after betrayal. Harder than knowing that I had sisters in the Republic who'd fought hard to look for me, to get to me. Harder than anything.

Wordlessly, I tried to walk forward, but I cried out, falling to one knee. He approached me from behind, and I heard just in the way that he breathed that he wanted to help but suddenly didn't know what was allowed.

Ever the rules man, he hesitated to help me up.

I had to clench my jaw through the pain. I'd ask Jaesa to heal me and Vette to hold my hand. They would help. We'd become close friends, whether Malav – whether _Quinn_ – liked it or not.

I let a whimper of pain escape my lips as I tried to stand.

"Don't touch me!" I snapped as his hands finally made contact with my shoulder.

I stood stubbornly on my injured leg, feeling the effort of standing tall tear at torn flesh.

We walked back to the airlock in silence then, his eyes on me. His air had changed, one of dread, of terrible knowledge. He knew what he'd done. All of a sudden, it had seemed to dawn on him. The implications of the new normal were now seeping in, and he was silent.

But he breathed ever so heavily, and I sensed his hands reach forward now and again to touch me.

He did not.

_Keep it together_, I thought to myself over and over and over again. _Keep it together. Keep it together._

Despair beckoned me.

I felt like such a fool.

"The ship is through there," I said after several moments of painful swallowing. "Prepare for departure. I'll join you shortly."

"Of course, my lord," he replied instinctively.

I could just see him bow his head, step back to take his leave. But he did not.

"One…one thing, my lord," he whispered tentatively.

I couldn't speak. I didn't trust myself.

"Do you plan on telling the others what happened?" he asked.

He sounded so desperate for its secrecy, so wanting of his treachery to be unrecognized.

But I was confident there was no way of hiding my feelings at that point. I was not a master of deceit like him. My friends, my true friends, would see me, and they would know something terrible had happened. They had no loyalty to the Empire. Vette was my friend. Jaesa was my friend. They were loyal to me, and they would see what this did to me, even if he - with all his calculations - did not.

"I don't know," I finally whispered.

A sob overtook me. One. Just one. I shouldn't have trusted him. I was an alien. I was a Sith Lord. I couldn't afford to trust anybody, especially a man so dedicated to his career.

One sob gave way to another, and I pressed my palm to my forehead to release some of the pain. The effort was fruitless.

Another wave of anguish poured out of me, and this time I could not hide it. It was soft and choked.

Because I was an alien, and I was not bloodthirsty. I was different. I smiled and laughed. I showed my true nature freely, and I allowed others to grasp at my heart.

"My lord…" he whispered, taking a step closer.

Another sob, louder now, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. I let out a breath at the contact, shrugging away from him desperately.

"Don't touch me!" I snapped back.

My voice, as I'd predicted, gave away my feelings. I was compromised, as he'd say. And he knew it. All at once. He'd broken me. I was broken. So broken.

He'd betrayed me. Tried to kill me.

How was I such a fool? How had I not seen it? I'd even been warned!

"Zaya…" he whispered, his voice cracked.

The sound of my nickname on his tongue jarred me. I'd worked so hard to get him to crack, to whisper my name, to moan it into my ear again and again and again. His using it had been glorious at first, and I'd felt such pride, such victory.

I was incapable of restraining moans when he said it.

The reminder humiliated me.

We'd had sex so many times.

He'd used me.

"What can I do?" he asked desperately. "Please, tell me, what can I do?"

He put a hand on my hip, as if to pull me to him, and I lunged forward, yelling out.

"Don't touch me!" I finally yelled. "You don't get to touch me! Not ever again! Now, get back to the ship!"

He was not afraid, but I heard him retreat.

And, as the door shut behind him, as it sealed and I was alone with the ghosts of the droids, I let out a wail.

What had I done? What had I allowed him to do?


	3. Chapter 3

I returned, bloody. They asked me what happened, but I didn't answer them. I couldn't. My lord, my wife, stood outside, sobbing, and something hurt so bad inside of me. Vette fussed. Pierce sneered. Jaesa stood across the room, arms crossed, eyes sad.

_She knows_.

"Where's Zaya?" Vette demanded loudly.

There was a ball in my throat now, a mass I couldn't remove. I opened my mouth to see if the presence of air would shake it, but it made it worse. My eyes searched across the room to find Jaesa. After a few brief moments, she sighed.

"Bring him to the medical bay, Vette," she ordered not unkindly. "I'll go get Zaya."

Vette's face paled, and she flipped around to face the woman I knew still to be a Jedi. Vette's lekku whirled and the sight of it made me dizzy.

"Is Zaya okay?" Vette asked, her voice high.

Jaesa hesitated.

"She is wounded," Jaesa finally answered. "But she is alive."

This was not a yes, and I held my head low in shame.

Nervously, Vette took my elbow and led me forwards to the medical bay. She barraged me with questions so quickly that I didn't keep up. I just shook my head now and again, and Vette looked at me strangely. Her eyes betrayed her. She was concerned for me, but she was angry.

She knew too.

This shamed me. Maybe they all thought me capable of such treachery. Even Vette, the girl with no military experience and little experience with the Empire or Sith.

Was I that predictable? If they had known, why had they not stopped me?

I found myself looking at my hands as Vette's hands removed my now ruined dress uniform. I didn't notice. This shocked Vette, who made some comment or other. It didn't seem to matter right then. I could get a new uniform, new boots, new medals.

I could not get a new wife, not like Zaya.

Vette pushed kolto onto my wounds with surprising alacrity, and I found myself dimly aware that the girl I'd treated with so much disdain was likely now preventing my imminent death.

I remembered to say thank you. Vette just nodded, pursing her lips. This restraint was unusual from her, and I – again – felt shamed. She was being better to me than I deserved. I wanted her to threaten me. Or, worse, I wanted her to laugh at me. To throw the kolto at my lap and make me do it myself, despite having injured my hands also.

A noise from the outside caused Vette's head to perk up, and she glanced at me once with those angry, judgmental eyes before retreating into the hallway to see the commotion. I braced myself to see my wife again, the woman I had broken and betrayed. She was injured, after all, and she would need to be treated at my side.

But instead of turning my way, the noises seemed to fade. Then, they disappeared altogether.

I felt horror. Had her wounds been too great? Should I have insisted she seek medical attention inside the ship? Should I have brought kolto with me for myself just to give to her? I'd considered that option in the planning stages of my treachery and had rejected it. I knew I was too weak-willed not to heal her in her last, dying moments. I'd opted to risk my own death for the success of the mission.

What if it cost her her life now, after all this?

I realized it was not what I'd wanted. Baras be damned, it was not the right path. I'd made a mistake, and he'd put me on it. I saw it now. He'd manipulated me, and I'd been so easily fooled. I'd strayed so quickly.

I felt tears come out of my eyes. They rose from my chest as I heard shushed and urgent voices far across the ship, whispering furiously to one another. They were no doubt explaining to one another my story, rehashing it again and again until it no longer needed to be repeated to be believed.

I didn't feel angry. I deserved scorn and hatred. To be put out of the airlock.

I had betrayed _her_.

That was all that mattered, in the end. All I felt, all that rose out of me, was a sea of regret.

Baras had given me my career. That had seemed most important. That had seemed the most pivotal thing. I'd dedicated my life to its continued existence.

But why would that matter if I didn't have _her?_ Life after her seemed black. How had I not seen that? How had I not anticipated the sobs that had risen, so painfully, out of her chest?

The pain became so intense that I felt crippled. I was sure that this event would be impossible to survive.

I felt a sob wrack my numbed body. Her pain would be even worse. I twisted on the bed, writhing with it. I wanted to rush to her, to drop to my knees.

What if she was dead? What if I killed her? My voice was harsh in the medbay, and I was grateful that the echoes in here could not be heard as easily from the other side. That was the way of the medbay. Nobody wanted to hear the screams inside, but you could hear everything that went on outside.

I sobbed again, pressing my wounded hands to my forehead, trying to punish myself for being so wrong, for making such a wrong call. I'd relied on calculations to make a life decision about emotional things. But people weren't numbers. She wasn't just some number on a list.

How arrogant I was to even try to make her one!

She was dead, I knew it. She was dead.

I found myself saying it, shaking my head. Grief wracked me prematurely, and I felt agony even I could not have anticipated. Saying I was in anguish didn't do the feeling justice. This was more than regret. I didn't want my career. I didn't want Baras or the Empire.

I just wanted _her_! I just wanted _her_ and I had ruined it! She could lay mere feet from me, dying, and I was laying here, crying about it!

They would take her body to the cargo hold and put it in the cryochamber until we reached a secure port to do away with her body. They would want to pay their proper respects. I would be excluded from the burial. I would never get to touch her again, never wrap my arms around her. They wouldn't allow me to pay my respects to my lover, my closest friend, my wife.

No, no more calculating. No more math. No more tactics. Just emotions, raw and scary. Gut feelings. I couldn't rely on my own previously-flawless judgment anymore. I had been in error. How many other things had I blundered?

Another wail came out of me. I just wanted her! I wanted her and she would be gone! I couldn't lose her! I would die. I knew that I would die. What would I do? What would I do without her? What would her friends do?

Suddenly, that didn't seem to matter.

Abruptly, Jaesa walked in. I had expected this. Punishment. Anger. Reprimands.

But I threw all this away in favor of relief, in knowing, finally, what her fate was.

"Is she alive?"

"Why the frack do you care?" Jaesa spat, not even sparing me a glance.

She hurried past me and reached into the cabinet.

"Is she?" I insisted. "Please, Jaesa…"

"She's going to be fine," Jaesa answered in a moment of compassion. "As for you, I'm not so sure yet."

That didn't matter to me. What mattered was that she wasn't dead yet. Tears of a different sort came now, and I found myself rededicating myself to her with so much vehemence that I was rendered breathless by it. I was hers, wholly and irrevocably. I had to earn her back. I had to show her the depth of my love.

She would doubt me.

But I had to try.

Above my head, Jaesa injected something into a tube Vette had attached to my wrist. I felt very sleepy, suddenly, and I drifted into an anxiety-riddled sleep.

Something about my eagerness to prove myself to her resonated with me. I was proud of everything I'd accomplished, and my career meant everything to me. Suddenly, I wanted to show her what this meant, to make her understand my dedication.

I wanted to impress her.

Because she was her. I was beginning to learn what that meant, her being her. She did not kill on sight. She reveled in diplomacy and rarely attacked an enemy prematurely. She often allowed them to reveal their motives before engaging. Tactically genius. She was kind spirited and gentle, but not weak. This side of her she only allowed us to see, those she allowed to step onto her ship, and I was shocked at first to discover how disparate her presence could be between when we were in public and then in private. Off the ship, she could be commanding and harsh, but never unkind. She did not demand loyalty but commanded it, and more than once did I see soldiers follow her out of a room with their eyes.

I heard the men speak of her. She was beautiful. Her eyes were green, and they made my heart race when they danced my way, always so full of mirth and laughter. Unusual – borderline inappropriate – for a Sith Lord, but she didn't seem to care. She had the power to back it up.

I remember the moment I first saw her. I'd expected some beast of a woman. Powerful Sith were often that way, preferring to be very powerful rather than very beautiful. Purebloods were increasingly frequent, and I found myself repulsed. I'd seen far too many atrocities committed by Pureblood hands to think them attractive.

But then she'd walked in, pale red skin, body of a dancer, and I hadn't been able to swallow. Or speak. Or form sentences. A few very noticeable moments had to pass for me to gather my bearings, which were lying on the floor.

I watched her on Balmorra every chance I could. I found myself becoming more and more excited at the thought of seeing her again. To discuss her victory, to shower her in praise.

It was rare that young Sith were successful, capable, and strong willed. They were often lap dogs to their masters. I, admittedly, had been such a dog to Baras, but it annoyed me when other Sith were to one another.

But she wasn't. She'd been sarcastic, almost mocking. Irreverent.

I'd held my breath to see Baras' reaction, but he just laughed in that dangerous way of his. I found myself becoming increasingly impressed.

I'd let her see this once, said it to her once when she'd returned from her campaign. She'd advanced on me, and her friend, Vette, who I'd eyed with disdain, had barely restrained giggles.

But I would have been lying if I said that the experience was not entirely unpleasant.


	4. Chapter 4

My dreams swirled around our beginning, Zaya's and mine.

I'd pledged myself to her on Balmorra, and the feeling of being different than my old self had only grown since that day. I was no longer - could no longer be - that same man. Not around her.

Zawil's body made me hot all over. It had since I'd met her. I lied awake in agony as the thoughts of her burned in my mind. I laid on my side and extended my arms around my pillow, squeezing, just to release some of the energy I had thinking of her. More than once did I have to remedy my own arousal at night, through cold showers or by other means, just to finally slip into the mercy that was sleep. But it was not merciful. I dreamt of things she'd do to me in my sleep.

This was the effect she had on me. I had never been attracted to a woman so much, so fast, or in such a way.

She wasn't human, but this had never mattered to me. In the Empire, it was efficiency and merit that mattered. She'd said this to me once. I'd asked her why she fought for those that treated her like she was second-rate, why she tolerated it.

And she'd said that she fought because it was a meritocracy, and that was what was important. She fought because it made her better and stronger.

I'd admired that.

My old crew from the Academy didn't see it that way. Just days before I was reporting my success of my capture of Agent Volaren to her, I went out to have drinks with them while on leave. She took Vette and I to the bar. I separated with the women to see my old crew members. They were eager to see my new "Sith beauty," and they asked me all manner of vulgar questions that I'd laughed at. I discreetly pointed her out to them.

When they saw her, they laughed in earnest, something that had caused my own laughter to die. They laughed _at_ her. Being very inebriated, they told me that I was unlucky to have landed myself under the command of an "alien."

When they said it, I protested, but lightly. I didn't think she'd hear. I wanted to tell them to shove it, but I was embarrassed of my feelings for her. They were inappropriate, after all. She was a beautiful woman, yes, but she was my commander, and I was her subordinate. It didn't matter that she was a non-human to me. It never had. Not in the way it seemed to bother them.

But I couldn't say this. Doing so would reveal that I had grown attached to the beautiful woman. So, I could only laugh a little bit, protest mildly.

My weak protestations made me feel squished inside.

But when I dared look around again, I saw that she had wandered closer to the barkeep to order more drinks. A foul, cold liquid settled in my lower abdomen at the thought. The rest of the night was ruined for me, and I left feeling guilty and ashamed that she might have heard - even a little.

Only the events of my report about Volaren had served to cheer me up from these events, and she, at least, had the decency to pretend she had not heard. It weighed on my heart, but my head told me it was not a day to feel such things – especially because I had had her backing. Zawil been more than supportive of my cause. I knew I wouldn't have been able to accomplish it without her.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and I said to her,

"Thank you for allowing me to pursue this, my lord."

She smiled at the title, revealing perfectly straight, white teeth. It was a habit she hated, but I was hesitant to break it, even in private. It would have been inappropriate to call her anything else, despite how she taunted me endlessly.

"You could drop the stoic soldier routine when we're in private, Quinn," she said, laughing. "Show me a little attention."

But I saw something in her beautiful green eyes this time that made the not-out-of-character flirt come across as rather forced. It pained me to see, and I thought of my old crew again.

"I'm…" I cleared my throat and looked away from her disarming beauty for just a moment. "I'm not sure what you mean."

She smiled again, and again it seemed forced.

This bothered me greatly. The difference between her true smile and the farce was obvious to me. I could pick it out anywhere.

How and when had I learned to know her face so perfectly?

"Don't tell me I'm not your type, Quinn," she said with a tight, well-guarded smile. "Don't you find me attractive?"

Sadness pierced her voice then, and I knew.

My stomach dropped to my feet, and my throat became swollen. I did find her attractive. More than attractive. I found myself ogling her every chance I could, and I made up excuses to "accidentally" brush past her on the off chance I'd feel her skin. She hadn't been too injured yet, nothing requiring me to disrobe her and press kolto on her wounds. I actually felt guilt at looking forward to the event with anticipation because I knew she would be in pain.

When I imagined it, of course, the injury was superficial or in some insignificant place or other. And I'd press my hands to her skin and make her pain go away as I kneaded kolto onto flesh that was soft.

I felt aroused at this thought as equally as I felt ashamed for the behavior of my old friends. She took a deliberate step forward, yanking me into the present violently.

Her eyes stilled my fiery thoughts, and I faltered. She'd heard my crew. I could see it. And worse, she'd heard me hearing them and saying little to punish them.

My voice, expertly level, did my work for me, covering my ass. For the first time, I felt sick that I was so good at it.

"Indeed, my lord, you are not a type at all. I dare say, you are a wholly unique woman."

This response made her angry, her eyes revealed, but I'd long since learned that she was not the type to maim or kill or even lash out – not to her friends. So, when she was angry, I was not afraid. Just…sad.

I wanted to amend my words, but I didn't want to push the envelope. I'd been burned too many times. I did not want to be holed into a corner for saying the wrong thing or professing how beautiful I thought she was.

"But…" I cleared my throat, wishing she'd back away from me. Her abdomen was exposed, and her pants hung low on her waist. She twisted around back and forth in what I was surprised to see as…nerves? And when she did, part of her hip bone tugged out at the edge.

I tried with all my might to suppress a groan and succeeded – barely. I knew what I would be dreaming of that night. Those hips, those wonderful hips, rubbing against me as they maneuvered up and down, up and down, allowing my length to penetrate her again and again as she took control on top.

The thought aroused me even further, and I fought hard to make the thought go away so that she would not see.

One look into her sad eyes made this happen. It shook me. The arousal ran away, the mirth faded. The pride and the joy meant less than ever before.

She went from just a body to a person, a friend. A living creature with feelings.

I suddenly felt guilty for having fantasized such graphic things, especially when she stood right before me. She deserved better, and I felt ashamed at the intensity of my urges.

"My lord," I said, as if trying to explain, "my work requires complete concentration, and I…well…I'm not used to juggling business with pleasure."

She nodded sadly. This was lame, and we both knew it. I knew why she was acting this way. I knew that she was self-conscious about being an alien. About the way she looked to me. She had no cause to be, and still I didn't comfort her.

It struck me that she could not know how beautiful she was. And she really was _so _beautiful. Even bigots across species could recognize that she was a fine woman.

"So I'm really not your type, after all, hm?" she asked ruefully, glancing up at me from the floor where she'd been looking.

We looked into each other's eyes. She took my breath away, and I wanted to apologize instantly.

"No, my lord, that isn't -,"

"It's okay, Quinn," she said gently. "Really. I promise. I mean, I'm…" She cleared her throat, but I heard the strain in her voice. "I'm an alien. You're a human in the Empire. It makes sense that you are not attracted to me."

She smiled that sad smile again, even as my abdomen tightened at how wrong she was.

"I understand," she said confidently. "Just…no more lame excuses or explanations, alright? If…" Then, her voice hardened. "If you're not interested in me, for whatever reason, just say so. I am not unreasonable, so I expect you to be honest with me."

Before I could correct her, she was out of the cockpit again, and I was left to my guilt.

The next day, she seemed to be avoiding me, and, though I'd grown accustomed to speaking with her at the helm of the ship during the long hyperspace routes, she did not appear. This bothered me, and I felt like I should clear the air. I wanted to.

Not just as her captain, but as her friend. I owed her more loyalty than what I'd given her, and even then, so early in our relationship, I'd faltered. I found myself struck with the thought that, despite my being such an exemplary officer, I'd not learned to be a loyal companion or a very good friend.

I wanted her to teach me how because, for some reason, I suspected she knew.

I found her in the cargo hold. She just sat, looking out the window. It was rare that I moved from my post to seek her out, and when she turned to me, she smiled, a true smile, one that made my knees weak and my head dizzy. But I had to be resolute, I was sure of it, especially as that same smile faded.

She turned back to look out the large window, leaning back against a crate she sat on.

"Oh," she said. "I thought you were Vette."

I hesitated.

"May I still join you, my lord?" I asked her cordially.

"Of course, Quinn," she said stiffly, patting the space next to her. "Any time."

My blood rushed at the thought, at the implications of this, but again, I resisted such impulses. Her voice sounded a little guarded, a little on edge. She was angry with me for what she thought to be my prejudice, and I didn't blame her.

She'd done nothing but earn my respect and admiration.

"My lord, I'd like to confess something," I began, sitting a cautious distance away from her.

She waited silently, peering out the window.

"On…the fleet," I said quietly.

"Yes?" she asked, and I noticed it now.

Her voice sounded cool.

"We went out for drinks, and you stayed with Vette."

"And you went with your crew," she said, nodding. "What of it?"

She was not making this easy. I grimaced.

"I believe you overheard them speaking about you, my lord," I decided to say in a rush before I could hesitate. "Things that I believe needed to be contradicted."

"But you did not," she said pointedly. "I know. You are correct. I did overhear."

I retracted. Something about this caused me some degree of embarrassment. My need for her to be proud of me smacked me in the face then. I had caused her pain. This affected me. It caused a pinching feeling near my stomach. I did not like it.

"I would like to extend my apologies to you, my lord," I finally offered quietly. "You deserved both my loyalty and my respect, and you received neither."

Zawil was silent and rigid as she stared at the window. Finally, she stood, saying,

"It doesn't matter, Quinn. I'm an alien. This is not the first time I have been treated as such."

She made to turn away and leave the room, but I had to explain it to her. I had to make her stay.

I reached out and grabbed her hand.

I touched her skin for the first time that day. It was softer than I could have ever dreamed.

"Please, my lord," I said, standing next to her.

She stopped, looking at me expectantly. She took her hand from me, arms now crossed.

"What?" she snapped. "I'm an alien. Your friends were correct. In the Empire, this is what matters. I forget myself from time to time."

She made to wave this aside, but I didn't want her to. My friends had been wrong, not her. It made me angry from a deep place to think of her being treated so poorly just because of her horns and skin. She deserved better.

"My friends, as you call them, were all drunk beyond reason," I said forcefully. "They said things that were both inappropriate and disrespectful. About your species and about the way you looked, about how they wanted to treat you. I want to apologize for their conduct."

She shrugged with subdued anger.

"Why? It isn't like you were saying those things."

I could tell by her voice that she had fully expected me to contradict them. When I hadn't, it had surprised and hurt her.

I felt strangled by my own idiocy.

"But I was not contradicting them, my lord," I said fervently. "And that is enough, I think, to warrant an apology. You deserved better. I'm sorry."

She pursed her lips before turning away again, saying,

"Very well."

I saw the smirk that played on her wonderful lips, the twinkle in her eye. She was back, and I knew that this was the right thing to do, to clear the air with her. I felt so victorious that I was nearly overcome by it.

But I had to make one thing clear. When she was at the door, I addressed her one last time.

"My lord," I said.

"Yes, Quinn?" she asked, turning her head to face me.

I saw her glorious backside, her full frame, tilted against the door, ready to swing around to go into the hallway. She held the side of the door lightly with nimble fingers, and I found myself incapable of restraining my eyes. I was grateful she could not see.

"I do not care, one way or another, about non-humans in the Empire."

"Is that so?" she asked, grinning a little with her voice. "Then do you have anything else you'd like to tell me?"

I hesitated. A second went by, then two. She rolled her eyes, but I heard her giggle, and it gave the control of my mouth away to a more impulsive being that lived inside of me.

"I'd say that if I had a type, my lord, you would not be excluded from it simply because you are an alien."

This, more than anything, satisfied her, and she swung out of the doorway, out of sight, leaving me weakly in the cargo hold, heart racing, chest pounding, feeling so totally victorious and giddy that I let out a laugh.


	5. Chapter 5

Pain. That was what this was.

My father had told me that pain was the instinctive reaction to intense and damaging stimuli. It was a physical response, and it proved that weakness was leaving the body. Pain endured was strength earned. It could not – or should not – be felt for other, emotionally driven things. Only fools invested themselves freely in other beings in the galaxy. The only interest that there should be was that of self-preservation and self-satisfaction. We existed to sustain ourselves. Nurturing the fires of relationships was borderline idiocy.

But I'd always hated my father. He was a sociopathic murderer, and he'd taken me from my mother just late enough for me to see that. He'd been wrong about everything.

Everything until now.

The person I loved the most in the galaxy had committed the ultimate crime against me. He'd conspired, as he said, with my most hated enemy. It was such an insult that I could not breathe with it.

The pain that came rolling out of me should have shocked me, but it didn't, so numbing were their effects. I'd often feared I'd lose him somehow. Such was the life of the people who surrounded themselves with me. I was a walking beacon of death. It was what I hated about the Empire. This was what they had made me, and I'd hated it.

But I _never_ would have thought that I'd have lost him like this.

After Baras' first betrayal, that was when I'd felt the first awful moments of terror over his death. He'd been bleeding, and when he stirred, I'd thrown my arms around him, sobbing all of the anguish I felt into his wounds, letting the Force do my work for me.

"It would take more than that to take me from you," he'd whispered softly, holding me tight.

What a fool I was.

Now, I felt all of this despair tumbling out of a loose roll of gauze on a wound long since healed, and the blood of my emotions came pouring out rapidly. I had learned my lesson once, and Quinn had made me unlearn it. I'd been happy. I'd wanted children. I'd been sincere in love and passion. I was truly attracted to him.

And he lost no time working his way into my bed and my heart to better his own situation.

What a terrible fool I was.

My father had beat me for feeling things for others. Pain could not be experienced anything but physically. He sensed that I missed my mother, my sisters, all of whom lived and worked outside of the Republic after my father's terrible deal.

Come with me or your family dies.

It was my first Force power: hiding. I could shield myself from seeing who I was, what I felt. I'd learned to mask it underneath just as well as I could hide it on my face to prevent people from seeing how kind I could be, how much I wanted to laugh, how I felt disgust when certain things were necessary.

I'd let Quinn in on that secret.

Idiot.

I felt a physical response to this aching unlike any I'd ever felt before. Nausea swirled through me in bursts of energy. Every time my heart beat, another explosion of anguish would nearly cripple me. I could not feel my fingers. They were numb and cold. They, like the rest of my limbs, obeyed autonomously. My willpower was spent and could no longer influence them to move on my command. My eyes were blind.

It hurt so badly, so awfully.

I thought of him. Something deep and dark laughed and laughed at me as it rose up from within in waves of agony. It snuck into the little castle that was my heart, and it stabbed and stabbed and stabbed the queen there. I was no longer master of my own will. This creature inside was the master of pain, and it was to decide my fate.

Somehow, I was in my room. I didn't notice. I didn't see how. Strong hands had led me there. Whose? A man's, I thought. A familiar smell.

But not his smell.

I was placed on something soft and pliant. A bed. My bed? The hands went away.

This woke me up. I felt weak. So weak. So dizzy. My fingers felts numb.

"Where…"

Speaking hurt. A lot. A whimper escaped my chest, and I pressed my head hard against the pillow underneath it, desperate to get away from it. But this, of course, was impossible.

A smell of wet fur filled my nostrils, and an otherworldly wail assaulted my eardrums.

"Dammit, Broonmark," I heard a man's voice whisper through gritted teeth. "Out of the way!"

Somebody asked me if I thought I was okay. The same man's voice. Who? I tried to see but I couldn't. Tears were like that. They kept you from seeing. I tried again and couldn't. A third time. A struggle. I went to move my hands, but the tensing of my muscles to do so was agony.

This was my first red flag.

Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong. There was pain, but it was more than just pain. Something else was happening too. Something far more imminent than emotional scars.

I tried to open my eyes. I couldn't.

Then, a pressure came to my side, pressing to my wound there, and the tired eyes that had only an instant before seemed glued shut shot open with a rush of adrenaline. I shrieked with pain. It was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. The mere presence of anything was agony. It was as if a thousand needles were pushing into my skin from all sides.

"Don't…touch!" I shouted, feeling so broken.

Suddenly, I realized myself. I'd come all this way. I'd been a servant, an _alien_ slave,to one of the most powerful Sith in the galaxy. Now, I was one of the most powerful Sith in the Empire. And I'd always hated what I'd been made into, wishing not to kill but knowing that I had to just on the smallest chance that they learned of my mother, of my sisters. I couldn't risk that.

And despite myself, all the hate I swore I held for my position, I couldn't help the revulsion I felt for my own weakness. It would be exploited. This was their way. I was in the Empire, and, bleeding and dying, I would be left behind.

I looked so weak. It had never seemed more important to appear strong, to overcome the pain, but it was impossible.

Because something was wrong.

And they would see how weak and vulnerable I felt on the inside.

"Vette!" the man's voice roared.

"Here! Here! I'm here!"

"Where's that kolto? This wound won't close!"

"It's here," she said in a panic.

Something attached to my forearm and momentary relief immediately began to emanate from the spot on which it was attached. But it was only momentary, and if anything else, the presence of that which I recognized as kolto did nothing but increase the intensity of the pain. It rose out of me now so quickly that I began to sob. Something was terribly wrong.

"No!" I shouted, trying to throw it off my skin.

I was reacting badly to it. It was doing something to me.

Or something was _inside of me_ that was reacting to it!

Realizing this, panic began to descend in earnest. Despair fled in favor of staying alive.

"No…kolto…" I tried to whisper, reaching blindly for someone.

Moving was so painful it was nearly impossible. The noises I made demonstrated this profoundly.

"Dammit, where's that Jedi?" the man's voice asked.

"She's getting more supplies," I heard the small squeaky voice say.

The man's voice was Pierce. He was tending to me, large hands pressing into my side with kolto that fed my agony. I tried weakly to fight him, but he didn't relent, instead removing my hands from the wound I felt there with surprising gentleness.

"Shush, now, love," he whispered to me gently. "Don't want to wriggle too hard."

_Love_. Somewhere in the back of my mind saved this for later. His tone, strained but soft, was as quiet as I'd ever heard it.

I tried to speak now, but doing so sent fire through my throat so quickly that I couldn't stop it.

I shrieked now, pressing hard and upwards against the bed I laid on just to help it escape. It hurt so much, so badly, I was sure that I was going to die. It was worse than a blaster to the head, worse than a lightsaber to the chest. It was inside, and it coursed through me faster than I could even recognize. And the harder I struggled, the harder it was to breathe, to feel and be alive. It burned through my flesh, and all I felt was despair and torment.

His remorse _had_ been a trick. I was a fool, such a fool.

Despite this despair, some small part of me held on with a shred of wanting to live. I had to win. I could not let him or any of them win. I tried to speak, but I couldn't I tried to mouth the words, hoping he would see, that he would make the connection.

I couldn't see, but I heard him suck in a breath.

"Poison…" Pierce said. Then, I heard him turn away. "Vette, she's been poisoned! Get the Jedi _now_!"

I heard pittering feet disappear and reemerge plus two feet.

"The damn fool's poisoned her!" Pierce roared, all gentleness gone. "Can you believe it?"

"What?" Vette exclaimed. "Quinn? He wouldn't do that!"

"Don't be an idiot!" he roared, but another noise shushed his.

"Move out of the way, Pierce!" a commanding and familiar voice cried.

I felt a large mass move away from me, and I couldn't hold in a whimper.

"Alright, Zaya, alright, I know it hurts," Jaesa whispered to me quietly. "I know it hurts. I'm going to need to ask you to calm down now."

I nodded, but the motion shocked me with pain.

"Okay, I'm going to try to heal you," she said. "It's going to hurt. Try to relax. Try to let it happen. Calm down. Calm down, Zaya. Listen to my voice. Let my voice be your guide. Let me in."

I tried, but it hurt too much. Connected as we were, she sensed this and shushed me more gently.

"I know, Zaya, I know it hurts," she whispered cooingly.

I felt a hand on my forehead.

"I know it hurts. I know. Please, try to relax. Do it for him."

My lip turned into itself. All at once, flashes of all that had occurred in the last hour communicated themselves over into Jaesa's consciousness, and I felt her tense.

"Oh, Master, I'm so sorry…" she whispered breathlessly. "I thought…but I wasn't sure. I've failed you."

I shook my head, my lip upturning for another reason now. A sob of despair rose out of me, and I wailed with it, feeling so utterly despicable and little that I wanted my mother, wherever she was.

"Think of us. Think of Vette and Pierce. Think of something soft. Something good and warm."

I tried again, and I managed to shake my head.

"Hurt…" was all I could say, tears streaming endlessly down my face.

"I know it does, Master, I know, but I need you to calm your breathing. Clear your mind and breathe. I know you can do it."

I tried.

"Can't…" was all I said, so small.

"You _can_, Zaya, I know you can. I've seen you do impossible things! Do this!"

"…hard…" I managed.

A sob came out of me.

"…too hard…"

"No, no, Zaya, it isn't! You can do this! Please, let me in. Just calm down! Be here with me! I need you! We all do!"

"…not…him…"

She didn't even hesitated.

"But _we_ do, Zaya! We aren't your enemies! We aren't the Empire! We're your family now, and we need you to stay here with us! I can help you do that if you just let me in!"

I stiffened before willing with all my might my muscles to relax.

Abruptly, something cold began to enter my veins, something almost sweet and alive. It entered through my torso, and it began to swirl in soft, gentle circles outwards. It was light. It was pure light, cool but not chilling, sweet but not too sweet.

Relief began to make me feel warm, and I finally realized I could see.

I was in my bed. I was covered in blood, and Pierce stood in the back corner, mouth a straight line, forehead creased with worry. Vette sat on the opposite side of the bed, staring at me with wide eyes. She looked so frightened, and I realized how young she looked.

"She's too weak!" Jaesa whispered through gritted teeth, eyes closed, hands folded together so tightly that her digits appeared white.

"Hey…" I managed, head rolling around to see each of them, feeling the warmth grow.

Even I could hear how weak I sounded.

Vette couldn't speak for a moment, tears in her eyes.

"You don't look so good," Vette whispered to me, taking my hand. "You probably shouldn't talk."

For some reason, looking into her eyes, the hurt managed to hurt less. It didn't recede, and it was no less stabbing, but my endurance of it increased at the look in her eyes.

I felt bad for nearing despair.

"You mean…to tell…me…" I coughed, and it hurt. Blood came out. "Nothing…about this is…attractive?"

Despite himself, Pierce laughed quietly, a reluctant half-smile perching almost sadly on his square face. I gave him a slightly imperceptible nod, which he reciprocated before I winced in more pain.

Vette just wiped her eyes, leaning forward.

"That's not funny, Zaya," she said quietly. "Don't talk. Just rest."

I couldn't not do this. Giving into exhaustion, I fell into a restless slumber.


	6. Chapter 6

The first time we fought – really fought – was on Tatooine. I'd learned early on that Quinn was not happy with inclement weather. The heat bothered him a lot, and that made him a little bit snappy. While at first I saw this mood shift as mildly amusing, it had progressed into this rift of unspoken anger between the two of us. He resented me for bringing him along and not Vette, someone I'd learned early on he'd taken an eager disliking to, and I resented his resentment.

The days turned to weeks on the sand dunes. We were on our way back from Master Yonlach's location. We'd faced the sand beast already, and my doppelganger had identified me as weak. Pathetic. Sniveling. Useless.

_Merciful._

It played at every weakness I knew I had and tore them out of my flesh to expose them to him.

Not only was I embarrassed, but I was also exhausted with his attitude. His snippy – but cautious – replies to my queries had grown increasingly short, and that night we went to a local market in absolute silence. I was to buy the food (because I'd entrusted him with that task once, and he'd returned with something that smelled mysteriously close to dung) and he was to buy the water.

We were not short on credits, and a handsome young Zabrak there with tattoos on his face waved me over to look over his goods. I found myself glancing back at Quinn to check on his progress, but his back was to me. Rather pointedly, he had decided not to look at me for some time. Instead, he found the brown, somewhat rotten looking pouches of water _much_ more interesting than he found me or my backside or any part of me, for that matter.

I thought long about that talk we'd had in the cargo hold since it had happened. Since then, he'd shown me nothing but mild disinterest. Sometimes, I wasn't sure if it was even malice, but that could just have been my wounded pride. I'd been relieved that he did not share the prejudice against Zabrak so readily as so many of his fellow officers, but that relief had since faded.

I wondered why he didn't look at me. I wasn't the best looking woman in the galaxy, sure. I was an alien, granted. But I was a Sith Lord, dammit. I had a lightsaber. I could fly through the air. I was pretty tall. I wasn't small or petite, really, but I couldn't really afford to be.

And I was the _only_ woman in a desert with no water and no people for miles and miles unless you travelled with the caravans. He was a man from the military. Granted, he was an officer, but I'd grown up serving those types of scum as a slave, so I knew how they talked and operated. They'd said things about women I'd learned to accept.

War was hard.

And so was the desert. And he _still_ found the sand dunes more interesting than me_, despite_ my possession of certain parts and limbs that I'd thought he'd at least taken a liking too. Maybe it was vanity that had tricked me into thinking he'd meant what he meant.

I didn't look like those beautiful human women on Dromuund Kass.

Forlornly, I sighed, glancing at myself doubtfully. The tattooed man, who reached for my hand gently, whispered something to me that was just smooth enough for me to flip back around to face him. His fingers tugged gently at mine for just a second, and my head and neck followed instinctively at the urging of the hand. The gesture was uncommonly familiar. Those who knew me would never have dared such a venture, and most who didn't usually spat at me or treated me with scorn just because I was a non-human.

I felt myself drawn easily to his gaze with the familiarity. It was nice to be looked at for a change. To be noticed with a man who had eyes. A man who not only thought of me as beautiful, but one who looked like me, grew up with the experiences I'd had.

He tilted his head and whispered to me that I was very beautiful – and that Quinn didn't deserve me.

I laughed uncomfortably, but appreciatively, and the familiarity suddenly grew to something tense for me.

If even strangers could see my affections, what did those who knew me think?

This thought horrified me. Of course, I'd told Vette, but what would the man himself think? He was probably disgusted with me.

I gently said this to the strange – and incredibly handsome – man.

The man shook his head, placing a not-so-chaste kiss just beneath my ear on my neck. He whispered to me that Quinn was a "madman" for not seeing me as beautiful.

I asked him if it was that obvious, nervously, that I carried affections for the man, and he made a soft noise.

Of course not, he said. Only if someone had a lot of time to look, which he had. He said he'd seen Quinn and I come and go a few times in terse silence, but the way we looked at each other said enough.

He was doing me a disservice by neglecting my needs, the man with tattoos said.

His language was obviously not Basic, and his exotic accent sent a chill through me.

Something about this was simple and obvious.

I'd just spent the last few days moping about how Quinn, the most handsome officer in the Imperial military, refused to look at me when there were men all over the galaxy witnessing it from afar in envy.

I decided joyously that I would revel in the few moments I had with others and reserve my affections for him, even if the joy would fade and my so-called affections were unrequited and maybe even reviled.

If I continued to joke about it, then they would no longer mean anything.

I found myself tucking my lightsaber deeper into my robes so that he could not find it, and I giggled as the man and I began to drift closer to where he stood, physically and emotionally. The sun had gone down, and fires blazed quietly a few hundred feet in every direction. The light of the fire cast beautiful shadows on the tattoos on my face, made my hair glow in the darkness, he said. He asked about me, questions no one asked me anymore.

Where I was from, what I did for a living, who "the madman" was that I travelled with and why he refused to give me what I wanted.

I answered most of his questions with honesty, withholding only that I was a Sith Lord.

Such things would dispel these quiet, soft moments, moments that I now realized I'd ached for with an intensity. It was so difficult to be terrible rather than simple, or even beautiful.

Quinn cleared his throat, and the man's hand separated from mine. Much to my displeasure. I found myself even more irritated with Quinn after the exchange than I'd felt before it, and I glanced dolefully at the man as Quinn suggested we should head back to camp.

We'd made camp about a click from the campsite of the market, atop a dune looking down on the makeshift valley.

Just as we had left, we returned in silence, and the silence itself grew malignant and sour. I made my way over to the rock that would provide us shelter from the blaring sun the next morning, and I sat on it, staring into the clear, yet very dark, horizon. I did not want to retreat to our bedrolls, within feet of one another but still far enough to be acceptable in Quinn's eyes.

I didn't know who did it first, but the man had given me a bottle of something - some kind of icedrink made exclusively of alcohol and especially for those on Tatooine to cool off - and at first sip the icy liquid, the silence became something impossible to keep.

After several silent passes of the drink between the two of us, Quinn broke the silence first.

"My Lord, who was that man?" he asked a little too loudly.

The drink was strong, and I heard it in his voice as much as I felt it in my limbs.

I sneered into the silence, ready for this challenge.

"What does it matter to you, Quinn?"

"Respectfully," he said edgily, "it is my duty to look out for your safety and offer you suggestions wherever I can."

"Suggestions?" I asked, sliding off the rock to stand next to him.

He didn't retreat like he normally did. Instead, we stood facing each other with an anger that was entirely new.

"Tell me, Quinn, what suggestions could you _possibly_ have against a man noticing me?"

I stifled the words, "Because no one else will," just barely, but his faced changed as if I had said them anyway.

Carefully, he kept his mouth shut, and this drove me on.

"It doesn't matter to you," I said dismissively. "I'm just your commander."

It was a jab, and he finally rose to it.

"True enough, my lord," he spat, head bowed pointedly but never breaking eye contact. "Apologies, my lord."

He knew this drove me crazy, this submissive attitude. Passive aggressiveness was not my strong suit.

That had been beaten out of me. Literally.

"Fine then," I snapped, crossing my arms and turning away a little bit. "Just know that it's your job to back me up whenever I need you to, not offer me suggestions on who I can and cannot talk to. That is not your place."

"I will back you up whenever you need me to, my lord," he snapped with a hint of viciousness that was refreshingly intoxicating.

Was this the emotionless, platonic, utterly robotic Captain that I'd come to admire?

To somebody who did not know the man, the comment was entirely neutral. To someone like me, who had spent nearly every day with him for the last few months on Tatooine, the reply was something much more than a respectful address.

"However, based on our travels thus far it does not appear as if you need my help with matters of men."

I blinked. It was a backhanded slight.

And it hurt.

He had no idea how I was with men. He didn't know my history, and he'd never asked. It was likely unprofessional to have done so. So the fact that he was passing judgments on the very few and sparse interactions that I allowed him to see was nothing short of insulting.

"What the frack is that supposed to mean, Captain?" I asked, hands at my sides now, clenched into tight little fists.

"Nothing it does not need to mean, my lord," he replied coolly.

This made me angry.

"No, no, I want to know what that means, Quinn," I snapped loudly. "So speak freely and tell me how you've reached such a conclusion!"

He sneered at my feet.

"My lord, I am but a humble servant who exists exclusively to serve you. My thoughts and opinions do not matter."

With a sneer, I readied my heart for a battle on a turf that was foreign, but no less satisfying.


	7. Chapter 7

He took a rather large swig after this and thrust the bottle back into my hands aggressively. The action was rife with unspoken emotions. Aggression. Anger. Sadness. Bitterness. Disgust. Frustration.

This was more than I'd ever gotten out of the man.

Something was seriously bothering him, but I was suddenly too drunk to care.

"I gave you an order, Captain," I said pointedly before taking a final swig of the bottle.

It was empty. We'd finished it. The bottle, which was as cool as the drink on the inside, hung loosely in my weak fingers, a tie to reality in my tumult.

"Perhaps I did not understand, my lord," Quinn finally snapped. "To which order were you referring this time?"

I scowled.

"I said, 'speak freely,' Quinn!" I said louder. "_That_ order!"

He finally looked up into my eyes.

"If you insist, my lord, I shall do so! What would you like me to say?"

"Don't be cute!" I snapped.

"It is beyond my capacity to be as such, my lord, despite your best efforts to prove otherwise."

If I was sober, I would have colored, but neither of us were. Instead, the words just seemed to hit me like a fist in the throat.

"Tell me what you're thinking _now_ before I dive in your head and rip them out one by one!"

"Fine! The man!" Quinn said, gesturing uselessly to the campfires down the hill. "The Zabrak. Do you know him?"

"What? No! I was buying food from him!" I said after a stunned moment. "I've never seen him before in my life!"

"Respectfully, I did not see the merits in talking to him at all. When you allow these aliens to speak with you it brings unnecessary attention to yourself! As your officer in command, it is my duty to advise you that this is most unwise."

This hurt. And I didn't know why. The pieces fell in slowly.

"These _aliens_?" my mouth finally snapped. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Groups of species like yours are not so common on these backwater planets. Drawing near to him seemed reckless and unnecessary."

"He was no one!" I finally shouted. "I've never even seen him before! And as for the matter of my _species_, I can't help it if the only vendor in walking distance that sells food happens to be a _Zabrak_! I know that must seem really offensive to you, him being the sole reason you're surviving _and_ being an alien! Maybe almost as bad as serving under me!"

He now said nothing. And that hurt. He didn't understand my discomfort or he would have stopped right there. I sensed in him a strong desire to please me.

If only he could feel the anguish he was putting me in now.

"My lord, if I may be so bold, race has nothing to do with my misgivings."

"Oh?" I asked. "Because it seemed like it to me! Either that or the fact that he's a man of my own 'kind' that notices me."

Quinn said nothing again, obviously unsure of how to proceed. He finally said,

"I did not like the attention he bestowed upon you, true, but that was only because I humbly think that he is beneath your rank and position. He is a speck and you are the galaxy."

It was my turn to feel surprise.

Quinn was _jealous_.

Something sour filled my stomach, even as fluttering feelings passed through me at his words.

I'd given up on that thought. I teased him now to make him uncomfortable and for a small thrill it gave me. He could hate me, and I could foster a small infatuation from far away. No harm, no foul.

When he spoke again, I felt totally unsure of his intentions.

And that was scary.

And fear made me angry.

"It was…" He began before clearing his throat. He tried again. "Forgive me, my lord, but it is my uncertainty of your whereabouts that brought on this confusion."

"Whereabouts?" I asked, blinking. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"In the mornings and late at night. Sometimes, my lord, you are not here when I wake up. I do not wish to presume, of course, but it was my only thought, naturally, that you were going to meet up with the man in the market."

I couldn't withstand the disgust, and it came out of me with a vicious sort of sound.

The anguish inside of me was welling into something much larger: disappointment.

Prejudice really did color every part of him.

"So you think…that I…have been sneaking out at night to get away from you...to have _sex_ with a random man – who I met _today_, by the way – simply because he is a Zabrak?"

Saying the implications of his words out loud made the insult all that much more insulting, and both of us heard it as the question hung poisonously in the air. I felt wronged in a way I hadn't in a long time. I guessed being a Sith Lord had made that part easier. Nowadays, if people had an issue with my species, they had the good sense to say it behind my back.

"My lord…" His gaze had turned to the horizon, and I saw him calculating in his head, so cold and emotionless and blithely ignorant of the pain he was causing. "I did not mean -,"

"Not all _aliens_ are promiscuous whores, Quinn," I snapped.

His eyes snapped up to me regretfully.

Suddenly, the conversation was tense for an entirely different reason.

"No, my lord, I did not mean to presume or imply -,"

"And further than that you don't _know_ how I am with men. You haven't asked, and it's obvious you don't care, so don't you _dare_ accuse me of that kind of thing again. What, you think because he was a Zabrak that I should just be more apt to _mate_ with my own kind? Is that it?"

He hung his head, and the expression on his face was twisted with self-loathing now.

"I offer my most sincere apologies, my lord. That was not how I meant it, but I see now that this was the manner in which I communicated my message."

Back to formal talk. Back to being "his lord."

I felt so hurt that it ached inside of me.

"Yeah, whatever," I snapped, waving my hand and turning my back on him.

I didn't trust the look on my face to remain neutral.

"My lord, please," he whispered fervently, "I didn't mean to insult you."

"Oh, that was _so_ obvious, Captain," I said to the air in front of me. "Because if a man notices that I am beautiful, I must be having sex with him. That's how the career works, right?"

"No, of course not, my lord."

"But maybe that's how it works in the military," I snapped. "Maybe that's how the Empire works."

I found myself scowling before turning back to him.

All his anger was gone, and it made me feel bitter.

"Meritocracy, my ass," I finally said.

"My lord, I -,"

"_Captain_," I snapped powerfully, "that is _enough_. Get away from me!"

He hesitated now.

"My...my lord?" he asked fearfully.

"I said _go_!" I shouted angrily, waving my hand. "Leave me alone! You're a bigot, and it hurts to be around you!"

It had slipped, and he took a step back, as if I'd shoved my lightsaber into his torso.

"It does?"

I didn't want to answer, so my drunk mouth took over.

"You think you're so much _better_ than me because of the color of your skin, don't you?" I asked him, sneering. "You think that you're just some _wonderful_ asset in the Empire's military? Well, let me tell you something, _Captain_! Every _single_ piece of intel you receive on a day to day basis is obtained through channels that are almost _exclusively_ alien!"

"My lord, I already told you that I don't think of you -,"

"It isn't about _me_, Quinn!" I shouted now, feeling tears in my eyes. "It's about...that man. About Vette. About aliens. It's about _us_."

He was stiff.

"You aren't like other non-humans, my lord," he whispered quietly, looking at me with an intensity that was heartbreaking.

"_Yes_, I _am_, Quinn!" I shouted indignantly. "I am! I have three sisters! The youngest will be..." I trailed off, feeling broken for the first time in a long time. "She'll be twelve now. She won't remember me, but I..." I turned away, breathing heavily. "I have a mother who was a slave! A _slave_, Quinn! And you know what else? _I_ was a slave too!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his fists clench. I heard him swallow and prepare to speak, but I felt like I had to continue to unload.

"My legacy? My _birthright_?" I snorted bitterly. "My _birthright_ was given to me by my father, who nearly _murdered_ my family - my _masters_ - to bring me wriggling out of that place to serve _his_ will! I was taken from everything that I have _ever_ known and forced into another form of slavery!"

The silence was awful.

I hadn't even talked about this with Vette.

Angrily, I threw the empty bottle as far as I could, screaming in frustration. I turned back to him and pressed my index finger into his chest.

"You may think that you are some forward-thinking mathematical genius and that you've _won_, but you haven't won, Quinn, you are pathetic and _sad_! You know, I feel _sorry_ for you! I really do! Because you're missing out on a lot of good in the galaxy just because you're just a little bit too blind and stupid to see it! So much for being a genius!"

Exhaustion finally took me, and the breathlessness I felt made me feel a little lightheaded. I turned away.

"Do as you wish, Quinn," I said dismissively. "I'm going to sleep. Good night."

Pointedly, I laid down on my mat, my back to him, and I waited for a long time before he finally let out a heavy breath. He seemed to relax by the way he breathed, as if he'd been holding his breath for the duration of our conversation, and he finally moved to walk away, muttering,

"Dammit…"

When he was gone, I pulled my knees to my chest sideways under the blankets, and I began to cry.


	8. Chapter 8

We made our way back to Mos Ila in silence then. In reality, it was likely only a day's speeder trip, but it felt like eternity. My head was in terrible pain from crying and the ingestion of far too much alcohol in too short of a time. When we arrived, our ship had been moved to ensure that others were given a chance to arrive. There were only so many berths, and this meant that we had to wait for a day for the ship to arrive.

There were no rooms available to us, and I, in tune with Quinn's desire to maintain a low profile, ventured into the slummy parts of town to bars and cantinas to find rooms to stay in.

Eventually, we found one in which almost all of the clientele were Jawas, and a female took my hand and led me eagerly inside. Quinn made a noise of discomfort, but otherwise remained silent and followed me in.

The Jawa led me down a hall and into a room made entirely of sand, like the old buildings, and she motioned for the two of us to go inside together.

"Married people go into place together," she said before disappearing, and the door slid closed with a soft snap.

She thought that we were _married. _I cringed and couldn't turn to face him. He'd ventured inside already, and I heard him stiffen at the suggestion. Somehow, this thought struck me as very humiliating, but not because it was unappealing but because I assumed he would think it was so.

The Jawa woman knew nothing of what she spoke.

We stood in silence for a long time, both lost in thought.

"Forgive me," he whispered into the silence. When I did not reply, he amended, "My lord."

"For what?" my mouth finally asked.

I sounded cold.

"For my conduct," he said.

I heard by the sound of his voice that he'd turned to face me.

"What about it?" I asked him.

"I…am afraid that I have hurt you, my lord," he said very slowly, like every word was a labor. "And that displeases me."

"You didn't," I replied immediately.

But I cringed. We both heard that I was lying.

"Would you like me to leave you, my lord?" he asked after a while. "I can…find someplace elsewhere and rendezvous with you at the ship."

I cleared my throat.

"No, that will not be necessary, Captain," I said icily. "It would be suspicious, and I cannot be trusted not to fraternize with my own kind." I sneered into the silence. "Besides, you might fraternize too, and then where would we be?"

Finally, I turned to face the bed, but I didn't look at him. It was hard to hide my face, so I sat, my back to him. He sat on the other side.

"I would like…" He began, but he stopped before starting again. "I grew up on…Korriz. In the Esstran sector. It wasn't a busy place."

I turned my head towards him silently to show that I listened.

"There were non-humans there too, my lord," he said quietly. "Non-humans and humans living together."

I stiffened now.

"I…I _swear_ to you that I…didn't grow up thinking that non-humans were less than I was."

"But you think that now," I said bluntly. "I hear it in the way you talk."

"I…didn't realize how…how the military has affected my perception of things, my lord," he said to me. "I am…_so_ sorry. I really am. When you're surrounded by it, it's…hard to break the habit, however bad."

I mulled it over, sensing him in the Force like I always did. For the past few days, his constant presence had been a gaping wound at these thoughts. Now, they seemed a little bit to ebb back to the way they had been, but I was reluctant to forgive.

"Quinn, I don't need your apologies," I began, but he seemed passionate.

"No, my lord, you need change," he said vehemently. "And I can – I can _do_ that, my lord." He hesitated when I said nothing, until he finally whispered, a little desperate, "Please, allow me to do that."

"Why would you want to?" I snapped. "If the rest of the galaxy is this way, it would be foolish for you to unlearn this."

"But it's wrong," he said quietly.

"Yes, well, _I_ know that, Quinn, I'm an alien. But that…" I sighed. "That isn't going to be the popular opinion. You won't gain any favors from changing."

He swallowed audibly.

"I know."

"Why do you even_ want_ to be here?" I asked him, suddenly feeling viciously out of place. "_I_ thought we were friends _before_, but now I see that I'm just some authority figure and nothing more."

He was silent for a long time.

"My lord, I didn't know that you felt this way. I…" He breathed heavily, as if it labored him. "I have behaved like a complete idiot. I deserve to be punished."

He sounded strangely eager, and that struck me as even worse than his negativity and his attitude. Something about his insides seemed to twist up in a disturbingly familiar way at this suggestion, and I decided to address it outright.

"Quinn…" I whispered tiredly. "Why do you do that?"

"Do what, my lord?" he asked, leaning back to blink.

"Yonlach said…" I cleared my throat. "I can sense the conflict in you when Baras is around. I can sense that you are unhappy. I can sense that you are bitter, maybe because you've reached this point in your career at the grace of someone else's charity. Maybe because your career has taken a hit."

He made a noise, a strangled kind of sound, that might have been a little angry.

"Do you _want_ me to punish you?" I asked him finally, our backs to one another.

This, surprisingly, made it easier not to lose my temper. And I sensed all of his desires come tumbling out, aching for me to punish him, for revilement.

"_Why_?" I asked him.

"My lord, I have…" He cleared his throat. "May I speak freely, my lord?"

"Of course," I said, a little frustrated. I'd told him so countless times. He didn't need to ask for permission.

"I have given _everything_ for the Empire and for my career and for the military, only for it to have been smashed because of something that I did. I _have_ to fix what I started because…otherwise, my life will have been wasted."

"Wasted?" This stunned me. "But Quinn, you're one of the most exemplary soldiers I know."

He made a dismissive sort of noise.

"My lord, you do not need to take pity on me. You are far too kind."

I shifted a little, wanting now to take his hand and comfort him. I wanted to do this so much that I almost wanted to swallow my anger and forget about it in favor of making him feel better.

This jarred me. I didn't know when or how I cared so much that he was in pain, but I did.

"It's not kindness, Quinn," I said firmly. "It's the truth."

The thought of him feeling this way made me feel squished.

Quinn was silent for a long time. Then,

"My lord, I am honored that you feel that way, but I cannot shake a suspicion that your feelings stem from pity rather than respect."

"They don't, Quinn!" I said indignantly, moving around finally to stand and face him. "You've saved my life a dozen times! You pilot my ship. You help me fight and plan my battles."

Something dawned on me, something very sad.

"Does that mean so little to you?"

Finally, he looked up at me, a pained look on his normally placid face.

"No, my lord! I did not mean to sound so ungrateful!"

"Then how do you explain your feelings?"

"I'm…" He struggled, and his voice wavered. "From a young age, I have been dedicated to the Empire's continued existence not because I chose to, at first, but because I was influenced to do so by my surroundings."

"What do you mean?"

"My father was an officer, and my mother was a politician. We were…I was…taught from the very beginning that your place in the Empire is _everything_ to you. I lived and I _breathed _the Empire because that was how I was raised."

"Doesn't sound like a very fun childhood."

"It often wasn't," he conceded, maybe a little sadly. "I had to work with my mother on her campaigning. The business was cutthroat, and I learned valuable lessons. Your career is not just your career. It is who you are. It is your life. Feelings…relationships…they don't matter. Your career does."

I pursed my lips uncomfortably.

"But why?"

"Because loose ends get cut, and anybody who does not fall in line is cut down, often brutally."

I winced.

"It was necessary to do your job well and make sure others did their jobs and to…listen when you were told by someone more important to help them do their job because…that was life. Anything that threatens that must be eliminated in the interest of self-preservation. That's all I knew for a long time."

"Comply or die," I said, understanding, but wishing I didn't.

He nodded forlornly.

"Yes, and to have it…_torn_ from me so haphazardly by the ramblings of _one_ senile old man is…" He finally met eyes with me. "It is difficult. I wish it wasn't, but I cannot help but to feel fundamentally…wrong. Ashamed. And I know that this is my upbringing coloring my perspective of these events, but I still cannot help it. For so long, my entire being has existed exclusively for the Empire. Now what do I have? What do I do? Who do I belong to?"

Suddenly, I understood, and I felt so sad that this was his reality. He was trapped in his dysfunctional upbringing.

I'd finally met somebody who'd had a childhood as screwed up as mine was.

It didn't make me feel happy.

"Quinn…" I began, but I didn't know what to say. "You belong to you," I finally whispered.

Quinn scowled into his hands, unable to look at me now.

"I belong to _Baras_," he corrected.

"Do you feel wrong belonging to Baras?"

He thought before he spoke, as he always did.

"It was not the path I would have chosen when I entered the military," he admitted cautiously, squirming under my gaze. "I think, in a way, my application to attend the Academy was my way of self-expression. I could better the Empire and do it my own way. I could still…comply, but I could…find my own way of doing it."

I made an "ah" kind of noise.

"And now you don't get to do that anymore. You have to do it Baras' way."

"His intervention was inherently necessary," he said dejectedly. "Without him, I would not have my life. I owe him everything."

This made me feel pinched. I knew that feeling. It wasn't loyalty. Not really. It was something so deeply ingrained in you that you had to do what the person demanded simply because you had no volition to do the alternative. Their encompassing power was everything.

It was what I _hated_ about the man.

"But Baras is a cruel master," I whispered automatically.

He glanced up at me now, uncertain.

He'd never asked about my opinion of the man, but I'd always felt his aching to do so.

"Your life must have been very hard for these past few years," I noted. "I cannot imagine any of this has been…easy. You fall in line so easily."

"I concede, it has been difficult at times, my lord, especially when my career has been at the expense of others."

I blinked, still knowing that sacrifice.

"Who have you lost?" I asked him.

He hesitated now, eyes closed, forehead furrowed together with the stress of this conversation. Finally, he whispered,

"_Everybody_, my lord."

"For your career?"

"If you can call it that," he said, sounding bitter.

I bent down on one knee in front of him, all anger over racial slurs gone out the window. After a few seconds, I finally reached forward and took his hand in mine. I felt so bold doing that, even if I shook a little bit doing so. I hoped he didn't feel it, and I deliberately infused power into my eyes so that he would doubt it if he _did_ feel this weakness.

"So what if some Moff damned your career to some backwater planet?" I asked, smiling gently. "So what if he blew it all out of the water? Don't you feel like you still have merits to be proud of? That fulfills your purpose of bettering the Empire?"

"Yes, but -,"

"It wasn't your choice, but you're still doing great things every day. You get to _make_ a choice here. You are free to make the choices you feel are necessary to make our lives better."

He held his breath and took me in. The look in his eyes was full to the brim with undisguised…_something_, but, again, I didn't understand his intentions, so I didn't dare think that it was attraction or yearning.

"Thank you…" he finally muttered to me, squeezing my hand. "I mean it. _Thank_ you, I…no one has…Baras would _never_ afford me the same freedom."

"Baras and I are _not_ the same," I said to him a little harder, looking him evenly in the eye. "I know you felt trapped there, but you are my second in command now, and you can do as you wish. You and I are equals."

His heart swelled at this, I felt, and I felt the feelings in him balloon pleasantly outwards towards me. Despite his cool exterior, his insides were jumping for joy, and it made me smile a sad smile.

"However…" I sighed heavily. "I want you to _want_ to be here. If this is what you want, then I'd like you to get out of this…whatever this is. Because I need an officer who values the successes of his missions and the lives of his people over the loss of rank or his career. That dichotomy is unacceptable to me, and I'd like you to try to unlearn it."

He eyed me from what felt like very far away. This concept seemed foreign to him.

"It will be…a difficult lesson to learn, my lord, but I will…endeavor to learn it. For you. I only humbly request that you forgive me when I fail. This has been my habit for so long, obsessing like this, that it might take some doing to think the way you demand me to."

"No, not demand," I said, squeezing his hand again. "I'm just telling you like it is. If you want to be here, then _be_ here. Don't worry about Baras or your career or any of that. I'm not going to lord it over you like everybody else. You've got your freedom here, and you don't need to worry about self-preservation." I smiled, a little ruefully. "I know it must seem very strange hearing it from a Sith, but you can trust me not to throw you to the dogs."

He laughed softly now, and it made his handsome face almost unbearably attractive.

"Now, all I need to do is treat you a little better," he finally said.

I removed my hand from him and retracted now, remembering our last conversation painfully. I laughed uncomfortably.

"I think I might understand now how you're used to being told to do things and just doing them. I think I -,"

"Please, don't say that," he whispered, eyes closed now.

I noted that he didn't call me "his lord." In fact, as the conversation began to rush through my head at top speeds, I realized he hadn't for nearly the duration of our conversation.

"You deserve a better officer than me, my lord," he whispered. "Someone far more loyal and far less set in his ways. Someone who has the power and influence to protect you."

Again, the uncomfortable laughter.

"I don't need protection," I suggested, but we both knew what he meant.

He wanted to protect me in other ways, in more intimate ways. I heard it in his voice as much as I sensed it in his thoughts.

"You're right, my lord, I doubt that I could best even your weakest enemy. But what I meant was that you deserve someone who…won't cave into pressure when pressure is put on him. I am afraid, my lord, that this person is not me. I have learned and learned again to sustain myself with sacrifice of others."

It was my turn to squirm under his gaze.

"Well, I guess as long as you're willing to learn," I said distantly.

"I'm going to try," he said adamantly. "I didn't always allow these prejudices to permeate my outlook so fully. I wasn't always so pliant. Perhaps, with time, some of your resoluteness will rub off on me."

"Oh, with any luck that won't be the only thing of mine rubbing on you," I said before I could stop it.

I stiffened and flipped around, flinging my arms around my waist.

"I'm sorry," I apologized quickly. "Force of habit. I know you don't find me attractive. I'm sorry."

I felt humiliated by my own slip of the tongue and closed my eyes, willing myself not to show how upset this made me.

"Anyway," I said, unable to hide some of my laughter, "you just have to get used to having free thought. I know it's _scary_, but I have faith that you can do it!"

I pretended like this conversation hadn't upset me, which was a lie. It had. It scared me to hear how frank he was about betrayal, how it almost seemed second nature. Self-preservation was key. I hoped to change it, but that wouldn't happen right away.

"My lord, you are toying with me," he said good-naturedly.

"Oh, no, I could never do that to you," I said back, glad to be away from these thoughts. "I know that you take yourself _far_ too seriously to be laughed at."

He didn't laugh.

"I do not, my lord!" he finally said.

"You do so!" I said to him, feeling my smile widen to a thing with teeth.

His face didn't move, and it only made my smile grow.

"I would bet money on the fact that you aren't even ticklish! You don't laugh! You don't smile! Do you know any jokes?"

He reluctantly smiled now, but I could feel him holding in other things.

"I know some, my lord, but they are hardly appropriate to tell -,"

"Oh, what? In the inn's bedroom? Come on!" I sat on the bed next to him, nudging him with my arm. "Tell me a joke!"

"My lord, I…"

He seemed to be struggling now, and I felt bad, suddenly.

The smile on my face faded.

"What's going to happen when I'm gone?" I asked, leaning back on my hands to look out at the window. "You'll just go back to the old ways and that'll be that? Jokes and all will be flushed away?"

He wasn't sure how to answer.

"I…don't know, my lord. Truthfully, it is a situation I try not to think about regularly."

I snorted.

"What? Your transfer?"

"Your death, my lord," he said gravely. "It would be my hope that this is the _only_ thing that would result in my transfer."

"My death?" I repeated, smirking. "Come on! Wouldn't be so bad!"

He looked to the ground, head low, but he looked pained.

"I would be back to Baras and chains again, my lord. It would be like a form of death."

"Who knows?" I said, smiling out at the setting suns. "Maybe you'd land with a pretty little blonde haired woman from Dromuund Kass, and she could _sweep_ you off your feet."

There was an enduring silence at this, one which he broke first.

"I am afraid to speak so frankly with you, my lord," he said breathlessly. "I cannot often communicate…_effectively_…when you are around me."

"Don't tell me my good looks are taking your breath away, Quinn," I quipped sardonically, scooting further away from him into the bed. "Or has my suggestion of a beautiful blonde haired Sith lord inundated your senses?"

I looked at him exaggeratedly with a wicked smile, and I was satisfied that only a tiny part of me felt dissatisfaction or jealousy at the suggestion.

"Please, my lord…" he said, as if to reprimand me.

I hesitated now.

"What?" I asked, scooting further away.

"My lord, how can you not see that I admire you?" he asked softly.

Every muscle in my body tensed now. All of a sudden, I felt beneath the beams of an ion engine, too hot to even function.

"I…what?" I asked him, just blinking.

He interpreted this as discomfort.

"But, my lord, I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I just meant that…"

He looked up at me, but his eyes looked to be in pain, almost like he was a lost boy who didn't know where to go.

"Never mind it, my lord. Forgive me."

"No, what were you going to say?"

He looked directly into my eyes, clenching his jaw, hesitating.

Then, he let out a breath, as if a great battle in him was won somewhere.

"I was going to say, my lord, if I may," he whispered, "that I find you to be one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen."

"But I'm an alien," I protested, leaning forward now. "What about those women on Dromuund Kass?"

The edges of his eyes tightened.

"Which?"

"Blonde haired, blue eyes, no scars, no tattoos…" I put a hand to my face. "_Human_. Don't you find _them_ to be beautiful? They're small and little and petite and -,"

"Do _you_ find them beautiful?" he asked me.

"I do," I said, nodding. "I wish every day that I'm there that I looked like them."

He made a quiet noise.

"My lord," he whispered, "You may not notice, but I do. I have seen the way men _and_ women look at you."

"Yeah? _So?"_

"It is not a bad look, my lord," he continued. "They see you as a beautiful woman...like...so many do."

A fluttering feeling erupted in my stomach, rolled over onto my side, and bit my lip to keep from giddy laughter from slipping through.

"Well, thanks," was all I let myself say. "We should probably rest now. Vette's going to call early in the morning."

I couldn't _wait_ to tell her all that had occurred.


	9. Chapter 9

As time passed, things passed into normalcy once more.

Well. Relative normalcy. My heart did strange things whenever she was in the vicinity and I struggled to do anything but think of her. Only very basic tasks drove her from my mind, and that had become the custom on Alderaan. For me, anyway. She'd left me behind.

And worries had taken me because of it. She didn't have feelings for me. That much was clear. She was attracted to me, and that was it. Which was okay. It was not the first time I had been propositioned by a beautiful woman. But something about it meaning nothing made my stomach flop in strange ways, and I didn't understand why.

There were also whispers on the street. There was word that she was a traitor. And the hesitation this brought me disturbed me greatly. I'd already discovered that she was not inherently loyal to the Empire. She backed Imperial reform. She _hated _the Sith and almost all they represented. Not in public, of course.

But, all in all, her ideas were unconventional enough to give me pause.

Evil whispers in my head taunted me. Why else would she be helping the Republic but to betray the Empire? How had I not seen it? How was I foolish enough not to have witnessed it? I was mathematical. Before meeting her, I'd spent my dull moments running equations, calculating things that probably were best left alone.

Now, my dull moments were consumed by thoughts of her. She was kind and beautiful. She laughed and smiled easily, trusted easily. It would have been weakness, had I not witnessed firsthand that she didn't tolerate betrayal. It was her one and only sign of brutality. Beyond that, she was almost…

I shuddered to use the words, but…_cute_ came to mind. Endearing. Sweet. Compassionate.

Almost lovable.

It was so hard for me to sort through these qualities because they were what drew me to her. However, it was these exact qualities that forced me to doubt, despite my obsession.

No, obsession was not nearly a strong enough word. It was _fixation_.

I hadn't realized the depth of this until she'd left me to tend to the ship.

The first night was sleepless. Then the second was restless. Then a fourth, fifth, a week, two, all spent thinking of her well into the night. It was agony to be away from her to the point of exhaustion.

On the second week, I made this connection, that our separation had sparked my restlessness, and it pained me. It caused different doubt to swirl in my head. I'd thought she'd been at least a little taken with me. She taunted me endlessly, after all, forced me into conversations that were not only uncomfortable but damn near impossible to get through.

Because, damn everything, I _wanted_ her.

I wanted her and she'd left me behind. Which had to mean one thing.

She didn't want me.

At least, not in the way I'd allowed myself to believe.

Her beautiful face had led me astray, and that made me feel foolish. If she cared for me, she would have taken me with her. But she hadn't. I was stuck on the ship, waiting. Waiting. Eagerly waiting to be able to sleep again.

Every night, I wondered where she was, and always I wondered if she was thinking of me the way I was thinking of her. It was inappropriate, but I could no longer fight it. Doing so was impossible. I wondered if she laid under the stars, if she was comfortable, if she was warm, if she was safe. I wondered if she'd curled up into the ball that she made when she was asleep.

The first time I'd seen it, I'd thought it was endearing. But when I'd had to wake her, she'd jerked away violently, and I had realized something terrible.

She lied that way because that way she felt protected and safe.

And I wanted to provide that safety and warmth so badly that it hurt somewhere in my lower abdomen.

Thoughts of her actually often went back to Tatooine. I'd spent the longest time with her there, and these thoughts were, looking back, not entirely unpleasant. I'd learned that she liked to sleep in late. She didn't, but I was always awake before her. She liked to hold things in her sleep, be it a blanket or something else. She smiled at strangers, and she enjoyed living in anonymity. Sure, she enjoyed the power her title afforded her, but she seemed happiest when no one knew who she was.

And she had nightmares.

Bad nightmares.

It had been that way for some time in the deserts there, and I'd watched them grow in intensity until she was panting, sobbing, tears rolling out of her eyes in thin streaks, her mouth contorted with pain. It had taken everything inside of me not to roll over and consume the tears, to calm the tension in her lips. I wanted to kiss the pain away, lap it up with a desperation that was, up until that point, very unfamiliar.

She'd been inches from me then, and I'd leaned in, fraught with emotions and desires not all physical, leaning over her, breathing heavily, wanting to tear her from that dark, frightening place where she seemed so small and helpless.

The sight of her that way had burned in my mind, and the nights thereafter had been spent with that familiar and agonizing ache to take it all away. The memory also carried with it no small amount of guilt. I should have woken her up, but I hadn't because I was a coward.

I recognized that after our talk near the end in Mos Ila. I was a coward. I really was. I caved so easily to things because I had learned this was how to survive. She bent to _no_ one – except for the demons in her dreams. And the one chance I had to take that away and do right by her, I'd failed her. Miserably.

I instead had covered my eyes, retreated out of fear of rebuke, and I had been forced to endure the soft moans of pain in her dreams, wishing that I could make her moan in louder, more ferocious ways. It was almost the moaning of a woman being pleasured, tainted only just by the hint of torment that I recognized all too well.

Groaning, I found myself pressing my forehead to the side of the ship, wishing that night would go away. Wishing thoughts of her lips would go away.

She'd kissed me. Just once. Right after we'd gotten back to the ship on Tatooine. That was when I'd begun to want her in more ways than one.

And every single time I thought of it, my own lips _burned_ with a swelling that would not, could not, be satisfied by anything other than a repeat event.

No, not just a repeat event. I wanted _more_.

I wanted to wrap my limbs around her, press my arms into the delicate crook of her lower back so that her breasts rubbed against my chest. The soft, light hair there would ignite a fire in her as the bundles of nerves screamed with pleasure, sending those moans straight to her mouth that was taut with desperation. I'd press my cheek into hers as her fingers clawed into my back, as I began to lose focus, as needs took over and thoughts ran away. Eventually, her fingers would run into my hair and grab desperately for something to hold, her other hand retreating south, further down, down, causing my breath to hitch, until –

"No!" I said to myself, pressing my forehead to the ship harder, trying hard to will the burning of my groin to subside.

I was grateful that I was alone, hanging down on ropes to work on loose ends on the ship. I'd long since completed the basic, simple tasks she'd left me with, and my days were spent desperately trying to quell the thoughts that rose up with the mention of her name.

These fantasies were growing increasingly long and detailed, and it tortured me to know that they would never, ever happen. She was my superior. She deserved my respect, not my fantasizing. I _coveted_ her, that was true, but I tried to think that it was because I was devoted to her. I wanted her to _win_, in every way that she could.

_I shouldn't be so disrespectful_, I thought to myself, scowling. _She deserves far better than me._

This was proved time and again. My doubt of her. My inability to wake her from sleep. My disloyalty.

When Baras had contacted me on the ship, I'd only been able to fail her again. He'd been incapable of reaching her via holo, and he'd been livid at her long absence. It had been a month then of no contact, an agonizing month of silence in which I _ached_ for her, to touch her and brush past her like I'd dreamed. And Baras has screamed at me. I'd held my head down, assuring him repeatedly that reports of her helping the opposition were likely rumors only.

When he insisted that they were not, I'd caved, failed to defend her, and agreed, asked him what he'd have me do to her.

He told me to wait, and that was all.

When Baras left, I was left to doubt myself and her, doubt Baras and the Empire, doubt what was right and what was wrong.

Because I knew, as soon as I offered it, that it would have to take something far direr for anybody or anything to influence me to separate myself from her. Doing anything to her almost seemed…absurd. Impossible.

One thing was sure, though. Failing to defend her had only multiplied my self-loathing, and I knew now more than ever that I shouldn't have her.

So when I busied myself in the hangar bay around the ship, feeling pent up and exhausted with all the nights I'd been without her, I nearly didn't hear the holocall coming into the ship. She'd set the tone to change at different intervals if it was her.

And this was.

And, despite my doubts, I found myself sheepishly and foolishly eager to lap her face up again with my eyes. I loosened the rope until I tumbled clumsily to the ground, once more grateful that I was alone, and struggled with the tangles of ropes so that I was free to make my way to her. The holo rang again, and my urgency increased. She was there, I thought. She was there and she wanted to talk to me, to ask me for help, to _see_ me like I wanted to see her. She _missed_ me, I told myself. She _had_ to see me.

Shoving the hurt that had masked itself for so long that she didn't take me instead of Vette, I finally broke free and sprinted inside the ship, shirt untucked, face unshaven, boots untied. I only realized this right before my hand pressed the button to receive her call.

"Shit…" I swore to myself, wiping my hair, trying to tuck in my shirt, trying to ready my uniform the way it was supposed to be. A final ring, and I realized I didn't have time. I couldn't afford to miss her.

Groaning self-consciously, I slammed my hand into the button – harder than I'd meant to and hard enough to cause pain to shoot through my hand.

"My lord -?" I began, but Vette's face showed up.

Irritation, disappointment, and downright anger instantly drowned me. The anticipation of having seen Zaya's face, of being able to look into her eyes and remember why I could trust her, was cut short painfully at the far second choice of the Twi'lek, still small and childish.

The sixteen year old's face was uncharacteristically tight – maybe even flustered – but I was too selfishly angry to care.

"Vette, why are you using Lord Zawil's holocom?" I nearly shouted.

"What?" she asked, ducking behind something.

The sound of her voice was distracted. She wasn't even _listening_ to me. As usual.

A spiteful, malicious part of me figured that she'd called me just to torment me. I had a sneaking suspicion that the Twi'lek knew of my now rapidly blossoming into the uncontrollable infatuation, and I scorned at her now.

I was _not_ to be laughed at for _this_.

"Why are you using her com, _Vette_?" I snapped, not even bothering to hide my anger. "She's given you your own! Why don't you use it?"

"Mine got broken!" she cried defensively.

"So what could possibly have motivated you to take _hers_?"

"What? Never mind that! Malavai, I'm…"

She ducked again, and this time, I heard something in her voice. Some small, immeasurable smidgeon of panic. The fact that she was, after all, only sixteen suddenly resonated with me.

A child.

A child following a Sith around into a warzone.

Something cold began to fill my torso by way of a funnel, and I would have choked had I not suddenly been caught with a feverish breathlessness.

"Vette, where are you?" I asked, all thoughts of my thwarted desires gone.

I didn't like to say it out loud, but as much as she annoyed me, she was Zaya's best friend. Her only friend. She was everything to my lord, and that had to mean something to me. I'd never allow anything or anyone to touch Vette because of this, and that somewhat brotherly, somewhat paternal instinct began to rear its head now.

"I don't know where we are," Vette said, tears brimming in her eyes at the realization. "I don't know what to do! I don't know where we are!"

She looked breathlessly over her shoulder, ducking once more.

Ducking beneath _blaster fire_.

"Vette, are you safe?" I asked.

"No!" she said, unabashed tears lining her blue skin on the holo.

This resonated with me. She was lost and in trouble, and she called me. She made a point to call me, out of anybody in the galaxy.

Though I'd never, ever admit it to her, I was touched.

"Where are you?" I asked gravely.

"I don't know! They're – we're stuck here! They have us pinned!"

"Who does?"

"I'm not sure!" she cried shrilly. "I don't know what to do! I don't know where to go!"

"Where is Lord Zawil?" I asked, trying to keep calm and failing.

"Zaya's hurt! I don't know what to do! She's not – she's not awake, Malavai, she's bleeding and I…"

The girl trailed off, succumbing to choked sobs.

Poison, cold and vicious, instantly filled my stomach. I leaned onto the holostation, my knees feeling weak.

"Where are you?" I asked, my voice as low and grave as I'd ever let her hear it.

"I don't know!" she said louder.

Guilt unlike any I'd ever felt for the girl drowned me, empathy and sadness.

"Okay, okay, try to calm down, Vette, okay?"

My heart raced and my fingers felt cold. I was shaking instantly, and I struggled to hide it.

"How can I be calm? Are _you_ calm? How can you be _calm_?"

"It's my job, Vette," I replied quickly.

She just nodded.

"Okay, when was the last time you knew where you were?" I asked.

"Um…" She ducked her head, crying out now, and she dropped the holo.

"Vette?" I asked.

Nothing.

"Vette!"

"I'm here!" she said far off, quietly. "They shot me, Malavai! What do I do? What do I do?"

"Where?" I asked, my heart beating impossibly faster at this.

"My lekku!" she said between whimpers. "Dammit, this hurts, Quinn! How do I stop it? I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding a lot! What do we do? We need your help!"

"Where _are_ you? How can I get to you?"

She was crying out of pain, and her groans and hisses made me feel sick.

"Is Zaya alive?" I asked her, feeling cold.

"I…" Vette cried out again. "Yeah, I think so, but she's hurt pretty bad! I think I got most of the blood to stop for now, but I can't move her, and I don't know how to heal using kolto!"

"I'm coming for you, Vette!" I said with barely restrained emotions. "Do you understand? I'm coming!"

I heard a fumbling noise and Vette's face popped up again.

"Hurry!" she said, her face contorted with fear and anguish. "I don't know how long they're going to play with us until they just decide to come up here and take us away!"


	10. Chapter 10

What happened next was a blur. It was feverish and I felt sick, so the time passed quickly. I used an algorithm to plot an azimuth from the beacons on Zawil's com, and I'd called in reinforcements. They arrived with agonizing slowness, I thought, even while my rational mind recognized that this was the most efficient and timely Imperial Battalion on all of Alderaan.

Armies at my side, I ran in from behind, and ambushed the scum who'd attacked Zawil and Vette. After just a few too many angry moments were spent on leaving no survivors, I called Vette's name. Even I heard the raw concern in my voice after the carnage was done, after I and my men turned over bodies and leaned over corpses, calling the names of my friends. At one point, it registered in the back of my mind that perhaps it was inappropriate to exhibit such concern for a commanding officer and a slave.

But no one answered. In fact, panic and despair began to descend as we reached the end of the pile of bodies and my two girls weren't there.

And I was suddenly that was what they were. _My_ girls. _My_ women. _Mine_. Something very possessive shoved the daunting prospect that I had not been able to protect them into the forefront of my rational mind, and in a way that had never been before, math, logic, and duty fell out of what was most important. Even survival mattered less.

My women had gone out and faced danger, and I had acted too slowly to save them. I had not been there when the danger struck. I had failed them abysmally.

I willed myself not to break down the front of my men, and for the first time ever doing so was almost impossible. Feelings I had never realized until their imminent loss overwhelmed me. I had never felt like this before because I had never been loyal to anyone like I was loyal to Zaya. She was on a totally new level of commitment and dedication.

I wanted her in my arms so badly that my skin began to crawl at the thought. I had never held her in my arms. The first time, I was sure, would be as a corpse. A body. A carcass.

But it wouldn't be my Zaya. It would be Zaya's body.

Everything was different now. I could see it as much as I could feel it inside of me. From that moment, I never wanted to be away from the place that she was. I couldn't imagine a circumstance forcing me to sacrifice her as I had sacrificed so many others. In my tumult, the mere thought was unimaginable. Impossible. The choice would have to be insurmountably difficult.

_This isn't happening_, I thought, as we reached the top of the hill and no more bodies were left to be searched. No movement. No life. Just small fires here and there and the rotting stench of burnt flesh, the metallic twang of blood on in the air.

_This can't be happening._

And then, all of a sudden, it wasn't happening. Because a hand, little and green, rose weakly over a rock on the far side of the steepest part of the hill. I heard my name, a small voice that caused me to exhale so deeply that I nearly moaned, and inescapable, unstoppable warmth burst from my eyes.

"Vette?" I shouted.

I heard my name again, more adamant this time. I heard another noise too, but I couldn't process what it was. It was foreign to my ears.

"Oh, gods…" I muttered, sprinting with all my might over to them both.

I turned a corner around the rock and found them both. Vette was bloody and whimpering, holding Zaya's head in her lap. Zaya was awake now, and every time she breathed in she moaned, as if containing the pain was pain itself.

There was a gaping wound in her side. Her dark robes were sticky with blood, and that awful metallic smell wafted sickeningly into my nose. Her skin parted like a piece of wild game, and I worried her insides were in danger of spilling out. That might be a death sentence.

Cold shock poured over me, and I grunted in pain. Suddenly, and for the first time in my military career, the sight of her ground everything to a complete halt. My heart seemed to palpitate strangely. I felt lightheaded and the tips of my fingers tingled, as if the blood that rushed through them took up too much space for that which my skin allowed it.

It was worse than I thought. My need of her was so deeply ingrained in me that just witnessing her life on the cusp of slipping away was impossible to comprehend.

Abruptly, my knees couldn't take it, and I dropped to the soil next to them, rich with their blood. The motion immediately stained my uniform, and in the back of my mind this registered on a fundamentally foreign level.

My uniform didn't matter. These two did.

Finally, a soldier behind me spoke, prompting me into the present.

"Captain?" he asked.

I jumped into the air, turning automatically to Vette. She was the child. She had called me, after all. Some semblance of decency and goodness that had been instilled inside of me from that brief and distant period before my mother had been a politician, a time that had been spent with my uncle and his wife, who were not openly supportive of the Empire, told me that I should take care of the little child first.

Even as my insides physically longed for Zaya to stop crying, to stop with those awful sounds.

Trying to hide my reluctance, but with an equally strange urgency, I took Vette's green head into my hands.

"No…" she whispered, almost inaudibly.

Her little green hands clasped mine and squeezed. She couldn't keep her eyes open, and it seemed as if all her energy was spent on speech.

"Zaya…do Zaya first…"

"Vette…" was all I could manage to say.

My voice shook, and my insides lurched. This little kid who I wanted to strangle had never spoken a single serious word to me.

Now, she was all gravity and calmness, bleeding out, dying.

A lump began to form in my throat. I'd misjudged her horribly.

"Vette, you're-,"

"She's _dying_…Malavai…"

I did not need to be told twice. Eagerly, but also with dread, I turned my attention to Zaya's condition. Her eyes were not open, but she whimpered like a child and the noises tore at my resolve as if years of military training had never been endured.

"Quinn…" she managed breathlessly.

It was like I was a block of wood, her words the whittle knife.

"I know," I said automatically, my voice hard and professional, calm to a fault.

Had I always sounded so robotic? I found myself loathing that quality with a suddenness that alarmed me.

"Quinn…" she said again, this time with more desperation in her voice.

She was pleading with me. This was incomprehensible. She was a Sith Lord. She was a freed slave, a non-human in the Empire. She was always in control. She wasn't supposed to act like this. It wasn't supposed to go like this.

She said my name again, tears flying out of her eyes with that same desperation for consolation. She didn't just want a robotic, mathematical pair of hands. She wanted me.

I didn't know what to make of this. So, I shoved a way to deal with later.

Hesitantly, I reached for her hand and I tried to move it but doing so caused a gash beneath her collarbone to gush blood. She shrieked in agony.

"NO!" she screamed. "No, Mal… No! Don't move my hands! Don't move it!"

"My Lord, I have to," the robot in my voice replied emotionlessly.

"No… too much…"

I ground my teeth together, clenching my jaw painfully. I knew what I had to do.

"My Lord, I'm so sorry…" I whispered.

And I tore her hands from her sides finally and after so much anticipation pressed my palms onto her skin. Numbly, I called over my shoulder for supplies and medicine, and I got to work healing her like I always wanted.

But the first time that I touched my beautiful, lovely lord's skin, she was incapable of being quiet. The pain was so great that words didn't even come out. Instead, just noises. Desperate, guttural noises. Screams. They weren't even words. Sounds I recognized out of other soldiers I had seen die. But I could never have imagined hearing those sounds out of my great and powerful commander.

In a frenzy, just as I had arrived, I didn't remember the next few minutes. I remembered frantic pain at her pain, desperation to make it better. Some protective, masculine force inside of me wanted for me to give up on the things that were causing her pain and to wrap my arms around her, covering her for head in soft kisses. I wanted to rock her back and forth, giving her a hand to squeeze when the pain was too much, the shoulder she could wince into that it was all so overwhelming.

But if I did that, some logical part of me recognized that she would die. I had to hurt her to make it better. And I was making it better.

This became my mantra until nothing else mattered. I would not let her die. Not now. Not ever. I found myself preferring to throw my life away than for her to throw away hers. I did not want to be separated from her by any means. My feelings, however surely they were unrequited, would go untold, and the failure of their departure from my lips to her ears would haunt me for the rest of my days. My lusts would go unfulfilled, and I could already feel the void of what it would be like if she was gone.

Her head began to sag backwards. She struggled so bravely to keep her eyes open for me, and even once, the tips of her fingers jerked upwards to caress my wrist, almost as if to say, "I'm so proud of you. You can do this."

Even here at the end, she was kinder and sweeter than I deserved.

And all at once, I felt as if I was drowning in her.

I stopped, breathing heavily, shamefully fighting back the prickling warmth that had erupted from the tear ducts in my eyes. But the moment was only brief, and I threw myself automatically into my ministrations once more, desperate to keep the blood inside of her and mend the wounded flesh.

Finally, the deed was done. A bandage was wrapped tightly around her torso near her waist, on her rib, and at her collarbone where the wounds were most severe. She was stable now, and my eyes, now adjusted to the lack of stress, couldn't help but notice that she was bare. Her breast band was just a small step above tatters, and I was proud that I had not noticed until that very moment.

Then, the pride turned to disgust. Wishing I wasn't the man that I was, I tore my eyes away from her still luscious figure, letting out a nervous laugh. I leaned back on the heels of my feet shakily, and when I exhaled even I could hear the unshed tears fighting to stay back in my throat. Relief such as I had never known cause me to thank every ethereal being I knew of.

I turned back to Vette, but by the time I'd done so the other soldiers were already well underway treating her. So much so that I alone was left to gape at her still ethereal beauty.

While they were distracted, I placed a hand on the left side of Zaya's head and with my right hand I probed the air around her cheeks, lips, and eyes. But a dam broke, and my hand couldn't be stopped. Whether it was inappropriate or not, I reached forward and brushed her beautiful blackish hair to the side of her face and behind her ear. It was much softer than even I could've imagined, and thicker. I wanted to run my hands through it. But something was preventing me, and it was not just social expectations.

The pin that she kept in her hair was propped awkwardly off to the side of her head, and it looked like it was in danger of being broken. Glancing over the other soldiers, I clandestinely reached into her hair and unfastened the pin before gently returning her head to its natural upright position. I slid the pin into my pocket secretively, and I stood tall.

I finally glanced at my watch. It had been the longest 487 minutes of my life.


End file.
